Boeing Whistleblower Allegedly Kills Himself on Day He Was Supposed to Testify in Court
As New York Post reported:
“A Boeing whistleblower was found dead in his truck in the parking lot of his South Carolina hotel after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony for a bombshell lawsuit against the company, a report said.
John Barnett, 62, had raised safety concerns at the airline’s factories and provided his first testimony just days before he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Charleston County coroner told the BBC.”
Barnett’s attorney, Brian Knowles, told TMZ that he had explicit doubt about the circumstances of his client’s death, and called the self-inflicted gunshot “alleged.”
“Today is a tragic day,” Knowles told Corporate Crime Reporter. “John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours.”
The whistleblower had been staying at the hotel, waiting to provide a deposition in a lawsuit against the company.
His lawyer said he and his co-counsel had been calling Barnett’s phone on the day of the trial, but the calls went to voicemail.
“We then asked the hotel to check on him,” he said. “They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged’ self-inflicted gunshot. We drove to the hotel and spoke with the police and the coroner.”
Barnett had worked for Boeing for over three decades before retiring in 2017.
He worked as a quality control engineer. In 2019, Barnett told the BBC that Boeing had compromised safety by rushing to get its 787 Dreamliner jets off the production line.
Boeing released a statement on Barnett’s death.
“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” the statement read.
The company has been under heightened scrutiny in recent months due to a myriad of issues on its planes, including in January when a door plug blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight.
Following the Jan. 5 mid-air fiasco, the Federal Aviation Administration discovered “unacceptable” quality control issues during an audit into Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems.
The FAA did not share its findings with the public, but according to a New York Times report, its audit revealed a troubling and inconsistent manufacturing process.
Investigators found that Boeing failed 33 out of 89 product audits — a review of specific aspects in the production line — with a total of 97 counts of alleged noncompliance, according to the newspaper.
Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the body of the 737 Max jets, failed seven out of 13 product audits. One of its noted failures had to do with the installation of the aircraft’s door plug.
FAA auditors also discovered mechanics from the company using a hotel key card to check a jet’s door, while another mechanic used dish soap as a “lubricant” in the fit-up process of the door.
Boeing – the number one American company that is totally, publicly collapsing with new disasters almost daily – is also the number one American company that has made a huge, public scene of the fact that they are replacing their entire staff with “diversity.”
They’ve publicly said that they want to be the most diverse company in America. And they’ve been actively either firing their competent staff, or otherwise bullying them out of the company, and replacing them with “diversity”, for years now.
yogaesoteric
April 16, 2024