(StraightNews.org) – A former Boeing employee, who was involved in a legal case against the company and acted as a whistleblower, has been found dead. Police say 62-year-old John Barnett died from a self-inflicted wound on March 9, days after his testimony against the airline giant. Barnett retired from Boeing in 2017 at the end of a 32-year career.
During his time at a North Charleston plant, where he was part of a safety assessment team for 787 Dreamliner production, Mr. Barnett testified that the company cut corners on safety, and under-pressure staff fitted substandard parts to the long haul 787.
In 2019, Barnett described some safety shortcuts in detail to the BBC. He claimed testing showed that up to a quarter of the oxygen masks were faulty and would not have worked during an emergency. At the South Carolina manufacturing facility, Barnett alleged that workers did not follow procedures and used faulty parts to ensure speedy production.
Boeing denied the allegations at the time, but the Federal Aviation Administration found that some of his claims had merit and demanded that Boeing address shortcomings.
Mr. Barnett died just days after repeating his claims to Boeing attorneys in a deposition in Charleston. Hotel staff reportedly found his body in his vehicle, and police said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound but added that his death is still under investigation.
Boeing issued a statement offering condolences to Mr. Barnett’s family, but this has stopped online speculation that his death was not as it seemed and was convenient from Boeing’s point of view. Some Twitter users wrote of “rumors circulating” that Barnett was “suicided” because he was on the verge of exposing “their entire money laundering operation.”
Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy added his voice and said Boeing tried to destroy Barnett’s life following his original testimony. Kennedy noted a documentary produced by his sister Rory Kennedy that looked into two crashed flights in 2018 and 2019 in which 346 died.
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