When it rains, it pours, which couldn’t be more appropriate regarding the corporate offices of Boeing. We’ll get to the product flaws in a second, but a second whistleblower has died after a short illness. Joshua Dean, 45, passed away after fighting what’s been reported as a mysterious, fast-moving illness (via The Guardian):
Joshua Dean, a Boeing whistleblower who warned of manufacturing defects in the planemaker’s 737 Max, has died after a short illness, the second Boeing whistleblower to die this year.
Dean, 45, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alleging “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at Spirit.
In 2018 and 2019, two 737 Max planes were involved in fatal crashes, which killed 346 people. Dean was fired by Spirit last year, and filed a complaint with the Department of Labor alleging that his termination was in retaliation for raising safety concerns.
According to the Seattle Times, Dean was hospitalized after having trouble breathing. He was intubated and developed pneumonia and a serious infection before dying two weeks later.
It might be that Mr. Dean struck a horrible case of bad luck concerning his health, but the two whistleblowers dying within months of each other doesn’t look good. John Barnett, 62, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in South Carolina on March 9. He was set to be cross examined by his attorney and Boeing’s legal team but never showed. He also reportedly left a chilling message to a family friend, saying if anything happened to him, it wasn’t suicide. Barnett was a quality control manager for Boeing. He retired in 2017 but came forward regarding concerns about the design of the 787 Dreamliner.
Since January, the aviation company has experienced nothing but bad press. A door panel blew off a routine flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, leading to a massive security check for the 737 Max 9 aircraft. That model was cleared for flying, but not before a mandatory security check found that some fuselages of commercial airliners using this model had loose bolts. Yet, even with the death of two whistleblowers, that hasn’t stopped ten more from coming forward (via NY Post):
A second whistleblower [Joshua Dean] has died under mysterious circumstances, just two months after another one allegedly shot himself in the head — and the attorneys for both men hope their deaths don’t scare away the at least 10 other whistleblowers who want the company to clean up its act.
[…]
A Boeing spokeswoman declined to answer questions on Barnett but in a statement, said that OSHA had determined Barnett was not retaliated against, and that the company’s own analysis found that the issues he raised “did not affect airplane safety.”
[…]
“We encourage all employees to speak up when issues arise. Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”
It’s news to other Boeing whistleblowers that Boeing and Spirit “encourage” workers to speak out.
Instead, they say, they’ve either been retaliated against — or ignored.
Ed Pierson, 61, a former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, left Boeing six years ago and created the Foundation for Aviation Safety.
He had tried in vain to get Boeing executives to shut down production of the plane before the two Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people and led to the planes being grounded.
“It’s an unstable company right now from the top to the bottom,” Pierson told The Post. “Senior corporate leadership is so fixated on not admitting the truth that they can’t admit anything.”
[…]
Dean had raised the alarm in 2022, while working at Spirit AeroSystems, a Wichita, Kansas-based company which manufactures major aircraft parts for Boeing.
He was a quality auditor when he raised concerns about improperly drilled bulkhead holes on parts for the 737 Max.
But, he alleged, flagging the issue with his management had no effect.
Less than a year later he was fired.
The Post added that in a 2020 congressional report, it found that the 737 crashes were the “horrific culmination of ‘repeated and serious failures’ by the company and air safety regulators.”
No doubt conspiracy theories will swirl because, well, this all looks abysmal for the aviation company.
