Just days before he was supposed to testify against Boeing, a whistleblower named John Barnett was discovered dead in his vehicle from a gunshot wound to the head on March 9th.
The incident follows the discovery of many quality issues with the company’s planes. On January 5, an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 had a door plug blow off. A 777 aircraft had a tire fall off shortly after that.
The FAA began looking into the business for its unsatisfactory quality control problems.
After severing 70 electrical connections on a twenty-four million-dollar Chinook military aircraft in 2008, Matthew Montgomery admitted to one count of destroying property. He claimed to be upset over a job transfer. His sentence included five months in prison and five months of home arrest.
23 Boeing workers were arrested in 2011 at a facility in Pennsylvania on suspicion of trafficking narcotics. According to reports, the plant in Ridley Park was the site of an illicit prescription drug trafficking network that the DEA uncovered, leading to charges for those involved.
Two Boeing workers were engaged in an affair with a supervisor in 2022, and one of them murdered his colleague. Despite this, the company did nothing to address the situation.
After 28-year-old Isaiah Washington was shot and killed on the street by his colleague Ralph O’Connor, his estate filed a negligence claim against Boeing. O’Connor took his own life not long after the event. The complaint states that Boeing was aware of the threats before the murder. But Boeing said there was no evidence in the lawsuit that the business was aware or should have been aware that O’Connor may hurt or kill someone else.
The lawsuit has not yet been resolved.
When whistleblower John Barnett’s body was discovered, he was due to testify a second time against the aviation firm. But Barnett’s attorneys, Brian Knowles and Robert Turkewitz, say they have reason to suspect that the tragedy was not a suicide.
According to a source, the police have swept John Barnett’s car for fingerprints. In a suicide investigation, this is a very rare step to take.
Reports reveal that after blowing the whistle on safety problems at Boeing, Barnett grimly predicted that he might meet a tragic end. He told a family friend that if anything were to happen to him, it would not be a suicide.
