Former Boeing employee John Barnett, who questioned the aircraft company’s production standards, has been found dead in the US, the BBC reported on Tuesday. The 62-year-old died from a “self-inflicted” wound on March 9, Charleston County coroner told the BBC.
Barnett had worked for Boeing for over 30 years before he retired in 2017 on health grounds.
He had been recently giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the US airplane manufacturer, which has suffered a series of safety issues in recent years, including the fatal Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of 737 MAX planes in 2018 and 2019 that killed more than 350 people.
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In 2019, John told the BBC that “under-pressure workers” had been deliberately fitting “sub-standard parts” to Boeing aircraft on the production line.
Barnett claimed that he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency.
He also told the BBC that workers had failed to follow procedures intended to track components through the factory, allowing defective components to go missing. He said that he had alerted managers about the concerns, but they did not take any action.
