It may have been a tragic coincidence, but there’s always some level of intrigue when a whistleblower is found dead.
John Barnett, 62, raised concerns about the production standards of the 787 Dreamliner in 2019, claiming that the model had some defects with its electrical systems. Barnett had worked for the company for decades as a quality control manager. He retired in 2017. He was cross-examined and was scheduled to answer more questions from Boeing and his lawyer on Saturday, but he never showed up.
The cause of death appears to be from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in South Carolina (via Fox Business):
The Charleston County Coroner's Office told Fox News Digital that John Barnett, 62, died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Saturday. Barnett was cross-examined by Boeing's lawyers and his own attorney days before he died.
The court planned for Barnett to answer more questions on Saturday, but he did not appear as planned.
The BBC reported that he was later found dead in his truck, which was parked in a hotel parking garage.
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He alleged the emergency oxygen systems that were made for 787 Dreamliners had a failure rate of 25%. This meant that a quarter of 787 Dreamliners had the potential to rapidly lose oxygen if the cabins were suddenly decompressed, suffocating passengers.
Barnett said that he had encountered these issues when he began working at Boeing's North Charleston plant in 2010. He reportedly raised his concerns to his managers, but did not see them take any action.
The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed Boeing in 2017 and ordered the company to take action, which corroborated some of Barnett's allegations.
Boeing has been at the center of a national public relations nightmare since January when a routine Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, suffered a scary incident when a door panel blew off. It led to mandatory safety inspections, which found loose screws among a couple of fuselages, followed by an FAA grounding of the 737 Max 9 and an investigation into the aviation company’s manufacturing practices. That model has since been allowed to take to the skies again.
Last week, the FBI announced they were investigating the Portland-Ontario door panel blowout. CBS News added the probe's focus related to “whether anything that led up to, or contributed to [the Alaska Airlines blowout] could affect the deferred prosecution agreement aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing entered into with the Justice Department in 2021.”
