Boeing whistleblower John Barnett who raised concerns about company’s production found dead in US: report

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Johanna Barnett, a former Boeing employee who was known for raising concerns about the company’s production standards, has been found dead in the United States, the BBC reports.

Barnett, 62, who worked for Boeing for 32 years until his retirement in 2017, died from a “self-inflicted” wound on March 9 and police were investigating the case.

The BBC report said the whistleblower worked for the US aircraft giant for 32 years until his retirement in 2017 on health grounds.

He was testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company in the days before his death.

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He worked as a quality manager at North Charleston Aircraft since 2010 and designed the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art aircraft used primarily for long-haul routes.

In 2019, he told the BBC that workers under duress were deliberately fitting substandard parts into aircraft on the production line.

Barnett also said he learned of a serious problem with the oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency.

Barnett said that soon after starting his job in South Carolina he became concerned that the pressure to build new planes meant assembly was rushed and safety was compromised, the BBC reported.

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While the company has denied such claims, a review by US regulator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2017 upheld some of Barnett’s concerns.

The FAA established that the location of at least 53 “non-confirmed” parts at the factory was unknown and were considered lost. The regulator ordered Boeing to take corrective action.

On the issue of oxygen cylinders, the company said that in 2017, it had “identified some oxygen bottles received from the supplier that were not deploying properly”.

But the airplane manufacturer denied that any of them were actually fitted on the plane.