On Saturday, March 9, 2024, former Boeing quality manager and whistleblower John Barnett, 62, was found dead in his pick up truck in Charleston, S.C. His death is under investigation.
Seven years prior, Barnett had filed an AIR21 whistleblower complaint with the FAA and OSHA. Eventually, eight other S.C. Boeing employees became whistleblowers.
According to The Daily Mail, Barnett “was supposed to do day three of his deposition here in Charleston on his AIR21 case [on Saturday].”
Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years when he retired in 2017. In 2019, Barnett went public with his concerns. In April 2019, the New York Times reported:
A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of internal emails, corporate documents and federal records, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, reveals a culture that often valued production speed over quality. Facing long manufacturing delays, Boeing pushed its work force to quickly turn out Dreamliners, at times ignoring issues raised by employees…
Safety lapses at the North Charleston plant have drawn the scrutiny of airlines and regulators. Qatar Airways stopped accepting planes from the factory after manufacturing mishaps damaged jets and delayed deliveries. Workers have filed nearly a dozen whistle-blower claims and safety complaints with federal regulators, describing issues like defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. Others have sued Boeing, saying they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
Both Joseph Clayton, a technician at the Charleston plant, and Barnett have told news organizations that they would not fly on a 787 Dreamliner.
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.
Barnett became involved in a protracted legal battle with Boeing, which is why he was in Charleston, according to the BBC. Barnett failed to appear for a legal conference on Saturday morning, which led to the discovery of his death in his truck in the hotel parking lot.
Safety issues in Charleston, SC
Boeing unveiled the 787 Dreamliner to the world on July 18, 2010, at the Farnborough International airshow. In 2010, Barnett worked at the Boeing Everett, WA, facility where the Dreamliner came together.
Boeing transferred Barnett to its Charleston, SC facility which was also going to produce the 787 Dreamliner.
An Associated Press report noted that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against Boeing “shortly before Boeing opened the $750 million Dreamliner plant.” The NLRB “alleg[ed] the nonunion plant was in retaliation against Washington state workers who earlier went on strike.” When Boeing told the NRLB that the 737 MAX would be built in Washington, NLRB dropped the complaint.
Barnett said that his entire management team had transferred in from former McDonnell-Douglas offices in St. Louis. The FAA has grounded only three planes; all were produced under McDonnell-Douglas leadership, either before or after its merger with Boeing.
- May 25, 1979: McDonnell Douglas DC 10; maintenance issue
- January 16, 2013: Boeing 787 Dreamliner; smoke and fires in the lithium-ion battery pack electrical compartment
- March 13, 2018: Boeing 737 MAX; design flaws with the new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) which was a work-around for engineering decisions.
Barnett began reporting quality problems internally in 2014.
Finally, we ended up with three pretty significant safety issues. I reported them inside the company. I pursued every avenue within the company to try and get them addressed. I filed an ethics complaint and they came back and substantiated my complaint, but they did nothing to correct it.
In April 2015, the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) withdrew organizing efforts. According to Mike Evans, the lead IAM organizer, “two union organizers were threatened at gunpoint and other workers reported hostile confrontations.” In a statement, IAM said, “An atmosphere of threats, harassment and unprecedented political interference has intimated workers to the point we don’t believe a free and fair election is possible.”
Brian Knowles, a Charleston attorney, told Corporate Crime Reporter:
Boeing South Carolina management went to the extent of having blue t-shirts made that they were giving out to everyone that said something along the lines of – I Am Against the Union – including kids size t-shirts.
As I reported in January, “In January 2019, Boeing announced that it would replace almost 1,000 quality inspectors with ‘smart tools’ by the end of 2020. That’s a third of the “second set of eyes” who double check safety.”
In 2020, Boeing found more problems with the 787 Dreamliner:
As many as 680 Boeing 787 Dreamliners may be affected by the latest revelation involving manufacturing flaws in the jets. Boeing confirmed on Thursday that it was in contact with the FAA about out-of-spec gaps in the joints between fuselage parts. It was revealed on Thursday that the vertical stabilizer is affected by the potential flaws, which were actually discovered almost a year ago but the company said in a statement its engineers decided “it did not immediately affect the safety of flight and no immediate action is required.” The statement also said it expects the issue to be resolved by “a one-time inspection during regularly scheduled maintenance (emphasis added).”
Then there’s the 737 MAX
The Charleston facility did not produce the 737 MAX. That plane is manufactured at Boeing’s Renton, WA, facility. Then came the fatality crashes.
- 29 October 2018: The first 737 MAX 8 fatal crash in Indonesia, 13 minutes after take-off.
- 13 March 2019: The second 737 MAX 8 fatal crash in Ethiopia 6 minutes after take-off. The FAA grounded the plane; other governments had done so already.
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This is a breaking story.
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Earlier reports on Boeing:
- A Boeing 737 MAX 9 blew an escape hatch on Friday. Here’s how a once-great engineering company created deadly planes.
- Should the Boeing deferred prosecution for 737 MAX 8 fatal crashes be rescinded?
- John Oliver on Boeing’s culture collapse: profits over safety post-McDonnell Douglas merger
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