John Barnett
 John Barnett    (Whistleblower, engineer) | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1961 Charleston, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | Charleston, US"Charleston, US" contains an extrinsic dash or other characters that are invalid for a date interpretation. (Age 63) |
| Nationality | American |
| Member of | Rhodes Scholar/1915 |
John Barnett was an American aerospace engineer, Boeing employee, and whistleblower. Barnett worked at the Boeing South Carolina facility in North Charleston, South Carolina, for 32 years before retiring in 2017. Around his retirement, Barnett revealed dozens of cases of corruption potentially having caused deadly incident with plane builder Boeing. After several more interviews throughout the years, Barnett was found dead in a car parking lot from a "gunshot to the head", with local US media calling it suicide.
Early life
John Barnett is according to the NYT a Rhodes Scholar.[1]
Whistleblowing
| John Barnett: What Boeing’s Biggest Whistleblower Claimed About The Company |
Barnett revealed in 2019 that many of the oxygen systems for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner were faulty as a result of poor maintenance ordered for cutting costs (showcasing tests which showed a failure rate of 25%). In 2019. Boeing denied everything, even though a 2017 review by the FAA upheld several of Barnett's concerns: it was discovered that over 50 "non-conforming" plane components in the facility were considered missing as their location could not be found.[2]
In a 2019 NYT piece, Barnett also reported that he had discovered "clusters of metal shavings" left near electrical systems for flight controls, which could have “catastrophic” results if the shavings were able to penetrate the wiring.[3]
Death
- Full article: Boeing
- Full article: Boeing
Barnett filed an AIR 21 (a law protecting airline safety whistleblowers) case against Boeing, claiming Boeing "undermined his career because he had raised safety concerns at the Charleston plant." Barnett was reportedly supposed to report for the third day of his deposition known to Boeing's lawyers and his lawyer when he stopped showing up. He was found in a Charleston parking lot.[4]
References
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/20/us/rhodes-scholarship-winners-include-the-first-from-city-u.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240312010432/https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50293927
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240224041733/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html
- ↑ https://time.com/6900123/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-found-dead-deposition-safety/
