It's because no other profession has the combination of (1) forcing people out of a highly trained role so young (with no options to reuse those skills in any other roles - forcing folks to go have to go back to square one and get a new professional education to move anywhere else), along with (2) the peculiarities of a government pension.

Unless you overhaul the way government workers earn retirement, or we decide that it's safe to employ older air traffic controllers, any other choice would be highly exploitative.

Yes that logic applies.

Any federal law enforcement position has this. For example, for the FBI or the secret service, you must enter by 37 and retire by 56.