John Barnett, a former Boeing employee and whistleblower, was found dead on Friday in his truck at a hotel parking lot in South Carolina. As of now, the death is being viewed as suicide. According to the coroner, Barnett died due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The BBC was the first to break the news.
Barnett the Boeing Whistleblower grabbed international headlines in 2019 when, in an interview with the BBC, he publicly voiced safety concerns about the 787 Dreamliner. The Dreamliner is Boeing’s state-of-the-art airliner, used mainly on long-haul routes. Barnett had a 32 year long career as quality manager at the North Charleston plant manufacturing Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner until he retired in 2017, citing health reasons.
Barnett The Boeing Whistleblower
Two years after his retirement, in 2019, Barnett raised concerns over the quality of the 787s being manufactured at the South Carolina Boeing plant. He alleged that the company was prioritizing speed over quality in a bid to push the production line of 787 Dreamliners.
According to Barnett, the company had compromised on safety by rushing through the assembly process in a bid to get the new aircraft off the production line as quickly as possible. The company, of course, denied the allegations and insisted that “safety, quality and integrity are at the core of Boeing’s values”.
Elaborating on the safety aspect, Barnett told the BBC in 2016 that he had uncovered problems with the emergency oxygen systems of the Dreamliners. Emergency oxygen systems are an important aircraft feature. In the event of reduced cabin pressure at high altitudes, the breathing masks, which are connected to an oxygen cylinder, drop down from the ceiling to keep passengers and crew alive.
In the absence of such systems, the passengers would rapidly be incapacitated. At 35,000ft, (10,600m) they would be unconscious in less than a minute. At 40,000ft, it could happen within 20 seconds, leading to brain damage and even death.
A report published in 2019 on bbc.com states, “Mr Barnett says that when he was decommissioning systems which had suffered minor cosmetic damage, he found that some of the oxygen bottles were not discharging when they were meant to. He subsequently arranged for a controlled test to be carried out by Boeing’s own research and development unit. This test, which used oxygen systems that were “straight out of stock” and undamaged, was designed to mimic the way in which they would be deployed aboard an aircraft, using exactly the same electric current as a trigger. He says 300 systems were tested – and 75 of them did not deploy properly, a failure rate of 25%.”
Barnett maintained that Boeing managers stonewalled all his attempts to have the matter investigated. The company, however, denied the assertions.
But this was not the only allegation levelled by Barnett against the South Carolina plant. He also stated that the company failed to follow the procedure of tracking the parts through the assembly process, resulting in a number of defective items being “lost”. The matter was reviewed by the Federal Aviation Administration in early 2017 and it was found that at least 53 “non-conforming” parts were indeed missing, validating Barnett’s claim.
He said that the tremendous pressure exerted by the management on the workers to hasten the manufacturing process, resulted in them fitting sub-standard parts from scrap bins to aircraft on the production line. And in at least one case, with the knowledge of a senior manager. This, he said, was done to save time, because “Boeing South Carolina is strictly driven by schedule and cost”.
Boeing Under Scrutiny
Boeing dominates the commercial aircraft market and has been under intense scrutiny over its safety record since two fatal crashes involving the Boeing 737 MAX in 2018 and 2019. Recently, the beleaguered company has been facing several technical issues with its aircrafts. The latest incident happened on Monday, in which dozens of people, most of them minor, suffered injuries when their Boeing aircraft, which was en route to New Zealand from Australia, experienced what the airline officials described as a “strong movement” caused by a “technical event”. In another incident that happened in the beginning of this month, a Boeing 737 engine caught fire shortly after take-off forcing it to make an emergency landing in Houston, Texas shortly after.
Apart from this, there is also a criminal investigation underway into another incident that took place in January where a Boeing 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines had to make an emergency landing after a window and a portion of the plane’s fuselage blew out shortly after take-off in Portland, Oregon. The preliminary report by the US National Transportation Safety Board following the incident found evidence suggesting that four key bolts designed to hold the door in place had been missing.
Barnett was embroiled in a long-running legal battle with the company, and at the time of his death, he was in Charleston for legal interviews linked to that case. He had accused the company of maligning his character and hampering his career because of the issues he pointed out. Boeing has, of course, rejected all the charges.
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