A former Boeing employee came forward as a “whistleblower” to bring attention to problems with the way their planes were made. He was later found dead with what are thought to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
Reports from a doctor in South Carolina say that 62-year-old John Barnett killed himself and was found dead on Saturday. “The Charleston City Police Department is in charge of the investigation.” “Right now, we don’t have any more information,” the Charleston County Coroner said.
Barnett retired from Boeing in 2017 after more than thirty years of service. The company said in a statement, “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s death and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
There are now doubts after John Barnett recently went public with his allegations of wrongdoing at Boeing in a case against the company.
Sometime in the past few years, Barnett was heard saying that Boeing purposely put broken parts on planes and that their 787 Dreamliner trip could leave people without oxygen in case of an emergency. At first, Boeing rejected these claims and said they always do things the right way.
During a flight, one of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 planes had a door plug blow out and fall to the ground. This caused a lot of attention on the company. After this, there was a thorough review, and details about other problems with Boeing planes were made public.
Recently, there was a “technical event” on a Boeing plane that caused “strong movement,” which hurt many people but only slightly. Two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX planes in two years brought the company’s problems to the public’s attention.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days to fix the problems with its production. In a separate report, the FAA said that Boeing’s safety culture was flawed and that many employees were afraid of being punished if they raised safety issues.
