John Barnett, a former employee of Boeing who was speaking up against the problematic manufacturing practices in the USA aviation giant has been found dead in a parking lot, with reports calling his death a ‘suicide’. He has been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the Boeing company recently after a series of technical snags in Boeing aircraft highlighted major manufacturing and maintenance errors.
John Barnett had worked at Boeing for 32 years until he retired in 2017. The Charleston County coroner has confirmed Barnett’s death, saying that he died on March 9, due to a gunshot wound that was ‘self inflicted’. The police are currently investigating the death. Barnett was 62 years old.
US conservative politician Robert F Kennedy has posted saying that Boeing worked to ‘destroy Barnett’s life’ after he exposed safety concerns in their aircraft.
John Barnett worked for Boeing for 32 years. The company worked to destroy his life after he exposed safety concerns. I’m proud that my sister Rory worked to tell his story in her award winning documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. Boeing killed 346 people out of greed.… pic.twitter.com/t7y2iI1DSq
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) March 12, 2024
Before his retirement, Barnett had worked as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant making the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner of Boeing used mainly on long-distance routes.
Barnett had spoken about manufacturing and quality issues in Boeing long before the Alaska Airlines mishap in January this year highlighted the safety concerns in Boeing aircraft. On January 5, a door along with a part of the fuselage of a Boeing 737 MAX-9 operated by Alaska Air fell off (Blowout as reported widely) when the flight reached an altitude of 16,000 feet.
Speaking to BBC back in 2019, Barnett said that under pressure workers have been fitting substandard parts in the production line. He also added that he had detected many faulty oxygen systems, which potentially meant that one in 4 breathing masks may not work in an emergency.
Barnett had added that in the rush to build new aircraft, Boeing was compromising on safety and the assembly process. Barnett had also said that often defective components ‘go missing’ because the employees do not have a robust tracking system for components inside the company.
Despite Boeing’s denial of the claim, a 2017 review by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the USA found that some of Barnett’s concerns were true.
Barnett’s death has come just a week after he gave a formal deposition in court in which he was questioned by Boeing’s lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel. He was to undergo further questioning on Saturday, for which he failed to appear. Later, his body was found in his hotel parking lot.
Boeing aircraft suffer mishap after mishap, non-stop
Another FAA audit that spanned six weeks has concluded last week that multiple instances were found where Boeing failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.
In the January Alaska Airlines ‘door falling off mid-air’ incident, the US National Transportation Safety Board found that four key bolts, designed to hold the door securely in place, were not fitted.
Following the mid-air blowout, Alaska Airlines grounded all of its 65 Boeing 737-MAX 9 aircraft for inspection. A day after the Alaska Airlines incident, the United States air aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to temporarily ground more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft for “immediate inspections” following the Alaska Airlines incident.
Since then, dozens of incidents involving Boeing aircraft have been reported.
On March 11, LATAM Airlines reported that a ‘technical incident’ onboard their Boeing 787 flight between Sydney and Auckland caused ‘strong movement’ that injured around 50 people.
At least 50 people were injured on board a Boeing 787-9 flight from Sydney to Auckland operated by Chilean airline LATAM, after the aircraft experienced a technical issue that caused it to suddenly lose altitude. https://t.co/iaJVnNZUTR pic.twitter.com/9r5DXnXOLF
— Forbes (@Forbes) March 12, 2024
Following the incident, New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission has stated that they are seizing the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder of the LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 aircraft.
Just hours before the LATAM incident, a United Airlines flight of Boeing that took off from Sydney for San Francisco made an emergency landing at the Sydney airport after 2 hours. Fuel was reportedly coming out near its landing gear. The pilot reported the incident as ‘hydraulic failure’.
A United Airlines flight has made an emergency landing at Sydney Airport. The Boeing was about two hours into its journey to San Francisco when the pilots turned back. 7NEWS understands the plane suffered hydraulic failure but it touched down safely. #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/YDFOrENyos
— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) March 11, 2024
On March 8, a United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8’s landing gear failed during landing at the Houston International Airport, causing the landing plane to skid on the runway.
BREAKING: A Boeing, $BA, 737 rolled off the runway in Houston this morning after issues with its landing gear, with no injuries, per ABC:#BREAKING: United Airlines Boeing 777 loses tire while taking off from crushing multiple cars on the ground pic.twitter.com/kThCebErJe
— Win Smart, CFA (@WinfieldSmart) March 8, 2024
A day before, another United Airlines Boeing 777 that had taken off from San Francisco had a wheel fall off during take off. The incident was video recorded and soon became viral.
In a probably unrelated development, reports have surfaced that for the past two years, Boeing has been making changes in its hiring and staffing policies to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
