Former Boeing employee and whistleblower John Barnett was discovered dead in South Carolina following his failure to appear for more court interrogation.
Supposedly, a self-inflicted gunshot wound was discovered with Barnett’s lifeless body inside his truck.
Barnett retired in 2017 after 32 years of service at Boeing. He testified that workers were allegedly forced to install defective or poor components on Boeing 787 Dreamliners to satisfy airlines’ demands.
While Barnett was a quality manager at a facility in North Charleston, South Carolina, he says senior management knew that some of these components had been salvaged from scrap bins.
Additionally, Barnett found issues in a quarter of the Dreamliner aircraft’s emergency oxygen systems. Boeing initially denied his claims but then acknowledged that certain oxygen bottles had malfunctioning deployment.
In 2018, another whistleblower named Ed Pierson allegedly made similar claims regarding worker exhaustion and safety issues.
A plug door fell off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in early February, temporarily grounding hundreds of the planes. This disaster added to the growing list that has brought Boeing under heightened scrutiny. The FAA and the US Department of Justice both began criminal investigations into the event, and the FAA found issues with Boeing’s safety culture and the company itself.
In New Zealand, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner had a “technical event” on Monday, injuring fifty persons. Shortly after takeoff, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 en route to Japan experienced a flat tire. On March 7, a Boeing 757 aircraft from Delta Air Lines en route to Colombia experienced a nose cone wheel failure during takeoff from Atlanta, Georgia. In January, a cargo jet from Atlas Air caught fire mid-flight and had to make an emergency landing.
Two tragic 737 MAX 8 accidents, one on October 29, 2018, and the other on March 10, 2019, reportedly killed 346 people, putting Boeing under further scrutiny.
Concerned Boeing employees have voiced their belief that whistleblower John Barnett “made powerful enemies” before his purported suicide.
He purportedly told people before his death that he would never commit suicide, adding a sinister conspiratorial twist to the tragic event.
