John Barnett was found dead in his car outside his hotel. He was 62 and known for being the whistleblower on Boeing’s safety oversight. Days before he died, John was giving evidence in a lawsuit against Boeing’s manufacturing’s quality. He was supposed to go through more questioning the following Saturday, but when he didn’t show up, they went to his hotel and found him dead with a gunshot wound to his head in the hotel car park.

Boeing’s PR gave statement: “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends." Sure they are. Probably more relieved than anything. John Barnett’s death is a presumed suicide for now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Boeing hired someone to murder him or threatened to ruin his life during the lawsuit. I mean this wouldn’t be the first time Boeing killed someone.

So who is John Barnett? He worked at Boeing for 32 years as a quality manager and spent the latter half of this career at Boeing’s North Charleston plant. Newly built in 2009, this was supposed to be a state of the art factory responsible for manufacturing the 787 Dreamliner. It was a revolution when it came out in 2009 since it advertised 20% lower fuel consumption, making it super popular with airlines looking to save money on gas.

The old factory in Everrett Washington wasn’t enough to meet the surge in demand, so Boeing built a new factory in North Charleston. South Carolina sweetened the deal by offering 1 Billion in tax incentives. South Carolina also has the lowest percentage of union workers in the nations, making it ideal for Boeing. The only problem was there weren’t enough qualified workers. Unlike Washington where there’s an ample amount of engineering and technical talent, Boeing found itself struggling to hire workers with enough expertise. Which is pretty important when you’re building a plane. It’s easy to convince someone to move to Seattle. Not so easy to convince someone to move to South Carolina, even with more money.

So John Barnett, who again was a quality manager, started noticing issues with the planes. He discovered clusters of metal silvers hanging over the wiring that commands the flight controls. He says if those sharp metal pieces penetrate the wires, it would be catastrophic. Another time, he found out workers installed faulty part into the planes when he discovered a dented hydraulics tube that’s part of tfihe central system controlling the plane’s movement. He reported all these incidents but Boeing ignored him and refused to move the debris and to not worry about the faulty parts. They also got mad at him for putting these in emails where it’s traceable and instead told him just tell a manager face to face.

John also said there were numerous complaints from employees that hundred of tools were missing from the factory. Turns out they were left inside the plane. Apparently people would leave things like ladders and lights inside the tail of planes and didn’t bother to remove them. Rich Master, a former Boeing technician, consistently found tubes of sealant, nuts, stuff from the build process inside the planes. He reported these issues to management but was fired. Dan Ormson, an American Airlines employee who inspected Dreamliners, said he always found loose objects touching electric wiring and rags near the landing gear. He even found bubble wrap near the co-pilot pedal, which could cause it to jam mid-flight. Even The Air Force, one of Boeing’s customers, complained about the debris and paused their orders for a while.

In 2021, Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 departing from Jakarta crashed 5 minutes after taking off, killing all 62 people on board. It was a Boeing 737 and the autopsy showed a faulty auto-throttle, resulting in an asymmetrical thrust. In 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed 6 minutes after take off, killing all 157 people on board. While part of the reason was due to pilot inexperience, the eventual consensus from government agencies was that  he design of Boeing's new flight control software, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System was faulty, and pushed the jet's nose down too much. After this incident, all 737 maxes were grounded for 2 years.

John Barnett said: “As a quality manager at Boeing, you’re the last line of defense before a defect makes it out to the flying public. And I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy.

Chapters:
00:00 - John Barnett whistleblower
01:37 - Manufacturing issues
03:51 - Plane crashes
05:25 - The FAA

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