John Barnett, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower was found dead in his pickup truck on Saturday, with authorities attributing his death to suicide. His untimely death comes in the middle of a deposition stemming from Barnett’s lawsuit against Boeing for unlawful retaliation after he raised questions about the safety and quality of Boeing commercial jets.
Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead In His Car In Holiday Inn Parking Lot Due To Apparent Suicide
62-year-old Barnett is thought to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head in his truck in a Holiday Inn parking lot in Charleston, South Carolina. Barnett spent over 30 years working for Boeing until 2017. Over the last seven years, he oversaw quality control at Boeing North Charleston factory that built Boeing’s popular widebody 787 Dreamliner jets.
Toward the end of his career, he “exposed very serious safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was retaliated against and subjected to a hostile work environment,” according to his attorneys, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles. Boeing has disputed such claims.
After a pair of Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2019 and 2022, Barnett went public with chilling allegations of a culture of safety shortcuts and quality compromises at Boeing (including using sub-standard parts to reduce production delays, failing to track defective material, and installing oxygen masks that were prone to malfunction). He further detailed that his superiors refused to listen to his 787 concerns and simply moved him to a different part of the plant to silence him. His lawsuit seeks redress with the US Department of Labor, invoking a whistleblower protection program in place at the time.
On Thursday Barnett was grilled by Boeing lawyers In Charleston, South Carolina. On Friday, Barnett was deposed by his own leagal team. He was set to complete the deposition on Saturday, but did not show. Concerned, his attorney called the hotel and he did not answer the phone in his room. Hotel staff entered his room and found it empty. But shortly thereafter, he was found dead in his vehicle parked in the hotel parking lot. Independent of his legal counsel’s sleuthing, a hotel worker had heard a gunshot and called the police.
Charleston Police have not completed their investigation, but say that all signs point to suicide.
His attorneys seemed stunned over the apparent suicide:
“John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end. He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.”
Boeing had little to say, issuing a short statement:
“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
As easy as it is to assume foul play, I wonder if something even worse is going on.
The pressure of going that deep into something against a behemoth corporation must have been beyond stressful. Rather than assume foul play, I rather blame the unbelievable stress he encountered for trying to do the right thing and being attacked at every corner by those in charge at Boeing. It’s truly tragic.
CONCLUSION
John Barnett, a Boeing whistleblower, is dead, with authorities blaming his death on a self-inflected gun wound. While his lawyers have vowed to press on with the trial, the loss of a key witness and the ability to cross-examine him will at the very least complicate things. My thoughts and prayers are with his family today. While all workers should feel comfortable exposing safety violations, it should never come to that point in the first place…
You are valuable. If you are contemplating suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or click here for a list of additional resources.
It’s funny, (as a joke) they tell you to smile for your first badge picture at The Boeing Co. because it’s the last time you’ll ever be happy. You can tell he’s been with the company multiple decades based off his badge photo.
Really hope that this pushes for stronger whistleblower protections. Thoughts and prayers to their families.
@Makik … +1 .
Any engineering company building aircraft ought to be adamant that Quality Control is most important and to be protected . If anyone had had concerns about quality , Lindbergh would have listened carefully . Lindbergh needed quality ; not accountants nor lawyers nor yes-men .
My guess is that lawyers really gave him a hard time at day 1 of the deposition, maybe even uncovering a very embarrassing habit unrelated to aviation. This is very common.
Another possibility is murder.
He realized how many lives he is ruining by destroying the stock price with his tales. There will be many employees who can’t retire as planned by to the drops in the stock price since 2019.
While he is not the only one responsible, he did the right thing and held himself accountable.
Hopefully he went to Cheetas in Charleston, enjoyed a few drinks, maybe did a bump or 2, bought a lap dance and then went out on his terms.
Boeing is doing just fine at destroying its own stock price. They don’t need any help. In the process though they did raise the stock price of the Company that makes Dawn detergent. Who knew you could actually build sophisticated aircraft with it?
The Boeing management laid off thousands of highly skilled “overly expensive” engineers hence why they had to cut corners by re-using the aging 737 airframe. Those laid off engineers can’t exercise stock options that they had to cash in when they left.
The merger of Boeing with Mcdonnell Douglas was the main factor in the loss of quality control at Boeing as it transformed from making safe civilian airliners to the concepts behind military contracting that are about either technical performance or profit.
The former CEO Dennis Muilenburg should have been charged with manslaughter for the deaths of 364 people but instead he got 60 million. I did the math: that money could fill 364 body bags with 50 dollar bills.
As corporations grow to the sizes they do, they wield incredible power over consumers, employees and are prepared and able to lay waste to anyone in their way. I don’t disagree with the idea of big business, but as we see with Boeing if you allow them to grow too big and focus only on shareholders, they become God. To be in the position of this man, who we now see was totally right with his accusations and not just grinding an axe, the pressures of facing this alone must have been debilitating. This should be a wake up call to why we need more Government oversight, less mergers, and more competition.
It’s fascinating to me that in the Soviet Union the lack of capitalism gave way to an aviation program that was steeped in problems. With people dying as a result. Here in America today, as companies get larger and larger, the irony is that it becomes no different to that system in producing shoddy products, engaging in cover ups, and destroying the lives of anyone who dares speak out. It’s truly reaching a frightening stage in America.
Boeing is so saddened by this loss that they bought the flowers for his funeral a couple of days in advance.
First prayers peace and respect for Mr Barnett’s family.
Half his life was with Boeing, and he did the right thing. Going through a lawsuit when your legal team will advise you not to talk to anyone is incredibly difficult. It is isolating when you could use the most support.
This is kinda like how Jeffrey Epstein *hung himself*.
+1
+ 1
Or homocide, murder…