Notes
John Barnett was the Boeing whistleblower. And in the heat of his damning depositions against Boeing about what he saw on the factory floor as a quality manager for the plane manufacturer, John Barnett was found dead in his truck with a pistol in his hand in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn.
Barnett had overseen the manufacturing of the 747, 767, and 777 planes, and he saw a lot: titanium slivers that weren’t being properly removed, shoddy emergency equipment, poor accounting of broken plane parts. He said that for pointing these things out, he was retaliated against and isolated. “Complaints seemed to go into a black hole.” He filed a whistleblower complaint in 2017, there are now shocking headlines about malfunctioning Boeing planes, and now the guy who was waving his arms is dead. There is definitely more to this story but what we do know is horrible: a man who was trying hard to protect people who trust that when they get on a plane they are going to get off of it in one piece is dead, under very fishy circumstances.
Also, he had allegedly told a family friend before his death that if anything happens to him, it’s not suicide.
for The Free Press
