New Delhi: John Barnett, a former Boeing employee for over three decades and known whistleblower, was found dead Monday in the city of Charleston in the US. At the time of his death, Barnett had been giving evidence against Boeing in a whistleblower lawsuit.
Barnett, 62, is suspected of dying from a “self-inflicted” gunshot wound, according to media reports. The former Boeing employee had worked for the American airline manufacturing behemoth for 32 years from 1985, till his retirement in 2017.
After his retirement, Barnett launched legal action against his former employer for failing to maintain production standards at the Boeing North Charleston factory, which produces the Boeing 787 Dreamliner — the company’s wide body long-haul aircraft, of which over 1,000 are in operation across the world.
Barnett worked as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant from 2010. In 2019, he told the BBC that quality issues in the 787 Dreamliner production saw the oxygen systems in the aircraft having a failure rate of 25 percent.
According to Barnett, tests of 300 oxygen systems at the Boeing plant, designed to mimic their deployment on aircraft in case of cabin depressurisation, saw 75 of them fail. That means if deployed in a real situation, one in four passengers would be unable to receive oxygen, which could be fatal.
Boeing at the time rejected Barnett’s assertions, as reported by the BBC.
Barnett pointed out in further comments to the British public broadcaster that the quality issues were a result of the company’s focus on rushed deadlines and keeping costs low.
Barnett participated in the documentary, ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’, which was directed by American documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy and released in 2022.
John Barnett, the brave Boeing whistleblower who spoke up against the corporation and participated in DOWNFALL: The Case Against Boeing, was found dead today of an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound after giving evidence in a lawsuit against Boeing. https://t.co/shNsR5kQRD
— Rory Kennedy (@roryekennedy) March 12, 2024
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The case against Boeing
One of the two largest airline manufacturing colossus, Boeing has been mired in production controversies in recent years. It was in the news recently when a door plug — a piece of fuselage that acts as a filler, where an emergency exit could be added in different configurations — blew off during a routine Alaskan Airlines flight in January.
The aircraft was a Boeing 737 Max 9, which first flew only in October 2023, barely three months before the incident occurred. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the US government agency regulating civil aviation in the country — launched an investigation into the incident.
The FAA found dozens of issues throughout the manufacturing process of the 737 Max jets, according to the New York Times (NYT). The six-week audit found that of the 89 product audits — a review that looks at different aspects of the production process — Boeing failed 33 of them, the NYT reported.
The FAA alleged 97 instances of non-compliance by Boeing. It also audited Spirit AeroSystems, a firm that builds the fuselages for the Max line, and found that out of 13 product audits, the company failed in seven.
The NYT reports instances of workers using a hotel keycard to check the door seal, and even applied liquid soap to a door seal as lubricant in the process.
On Monday, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand suddenly dropped mid-air, leading to at least 50 passengers being injured. According to media reports, pilots informed passengers that the drop occurred due to a “technical problem”.
Between October 2018 and March 2019, two Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, just after take off due to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) — a flight stabilising feature — that led to the death of 346 passengers and crew aboard both flights.
Issues surrounding the MCAS led to the grounding of the 737 Max jets for nearly two years between March 2019 and December 2020, globally. The issues with the MCAS systems and Boeing’s production of the 737 Max range of jets are well documented in films such as ‘Downfall’.
(Edited by Tony Rai)