‘If something happens, it is NOT suicide’: Boeing whistleblower’s friend reveals fateful last conversation before he was found dead
THE friend of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett has revealed their fateful last conversation before he was found dead.
The 62-year-old had worked for the aviation giant for 32 years before retiring in 2017.
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The staff became whistleblowers found lifeless in his truck just days after testifying against Boeing.
He died on March 9 of a “self-inflicted” wound, the coroner said, and police are investigating the death.
But a close family friend has now revealed how Barnett’s last conversation with her turned out to be something of a ‘premonition’. ABC news 4 reported.
Friend Jennifer said Barnett expected his death and that a story would emerge that he had committed suicide, but told her not to believe it.
‘I know he didn’t commit suicide. That’s not possible,” she said.
Jennifer’s mother and Barnett’s were best friends, and both families were also very close.
Barnett had recently visited Jennifer ahead of his deposition to Boeing lawyers, and the pair discussed what could possibly happen to him after he blew the whistle.
Jennifer said she was aware that her friend had filed a damaging complaint against Boeing, alleging that the aerospace giant retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on unsafe practices.
She revealed: “He wasn’t worried about safety because I asked him.
“I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m not afraid, but if something happens to me, it won’t be suicide.'”
Jennifer added: “I know he didn’t commit suicide. That is impossible. He loved life too much. He loved his family too much.
“He loved his brothers too much to put them through what they are going through now.”
Jennifer said she believes someone “didn’t like what he had to say” and “wanted to shut it down without it getting back to anyone.”
“That’s why they made it look like a suicide,” Jennifer said.
“I think everyone doesn’t believe it and can’t believe it,” Jennifer said. “I don’t care what they say, I know that Mitch [Barnett] I didn’t do that.”
Employee turned whistleblower
John Barnett, at the time of his death, had provided evidence of alleged misconduct at Boeing to investigators working on a lawsuit against the company. BBC.
Last week, Barnett had made a formal statement to Boeing lawyers and was questioned by both investigators and the company’s lawyers.
He was due for further questioning last Saturday, and when he failed to appear for the interview, investigators tracked him down and eventually found his body at the hotel.
“We are saddened by the passing of Mr. Barnett, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Boeing representative Jim Proulx told The US Sun in an emailed statement.
Beginning in 2010, Barnett was a quality manager at the Boeing North Charleston plant that produced 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which he relied on for long-haul routes.
In 2019, he told BBC reporters that he had witnessed workers under pressure deliberately fitting substandard parts to planes on the production line.
Barnett claimed that defective parts were mishandled and sometimes lost or reassembled into aircraft from the company’s scrap yard to meet production timelines.
He also claimed to have discovered major problems in the oxygen systems of some aircraft, which could cause one in four masks to malfunction.
Barnett attributed much of the lower quality work on the aircraft to an increasingly rushed assembly process encouraged by executives looking to speed up production.
Barnett said he informed Boeing managers of his concerns, but his warnings ultimately went unheeded.
“Based on my years of experience and history of aircraft accidents, I believe it is only a matter of time before something major happens to a 787,” Barnett said in 2019.
“Boeing and the FAA implement a rigorous inspection process to ensure that all of our aircraft are safe and built to the highest levels of safety and quality,” a Boeing spokesperson told The Sun Online Travel at the time.
“FAA inspectors are located at all Boeing final assembly facilities and have full access to the factory and flight line as part of their normal oversight process. All of our aircraft undergo multiple safety and test flights, as well as extensive Boeing, FAA, and aviation inspections before they are out of our factory and before the traveling public steps aboard these aircraft for the first time,” representatives said.
Boeing denied Barnett’s claims to the BBC, but a 2017 investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed some of Barnett’s claims.
The FAA found that at least 53 “non-compliant” parts were in an unknown location at the plant and had actually been lost.
Also in 2017, Boeing announced that the company had “identified a number of supplier-received oxygen cylinders that were malfunctioning,” but denied that any of the problematic canisters had actually been installed on aircraft.
Sky-high chaos: a timeline of Boeing incidents
BOEING has become the focus of increasingly worrying reports in recent months after a spate of failures on its planes. Here is a timeline of the biggest incidents involving the American aircraft manufacturer.
March 2024 – Boeing 787 LATAM LA800 “sudden nose dive”
March 2024 – Wheel falls off Boeing 777 United Airlines plane
January 2024 – Boeing Alaska Airlines tore a window
January 2024 – Boeing 747 Delta Airlines plane loses front tire
March 2019 – Fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8Ethiopia Airlines
October 2018 – Boeing 737 MAX 8 Indonesia Lion Air fatal crash
Boeing swings down
Boeing has made headlines in recent months has some serious problems with its planes.
Fifty passengers were injured on a LATAM flight of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying between Australia and New Zealand this weekend due to a “technical problem” that caused the plane to nosedive.
And the company is facing a criminal investigation into an Alaskan Airlines flight on a 737 Max plane after a door burst open at 16,000 feet earlier this year.
Yesterday a Boeing 777 had to make an emergency stop emergency landing after one of the tires reportedly burst just days after another Boeing lost a wheel during takeoff.
The plane had left Dallas, Texas with 249 passengers on board before landing at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) just hours later.
A ‘mechanical problem’ caused one of the tires to ‘burst’, forcing pilots to declare an emergency. CBS News reports.
Firefighters rushed to the runway to catch the plane as it landed Wednesday evening.
All passengers and crew on board AA Flight 345 were able to disembark safely.
American Airlines officials would not confirm the details of the malfunction — calling it only “a possible mechanical problem” before landing. KTL reports.
Earlier this week one The Boeing 777 was caught on camera leaking hydraulic fluid during takeoff before it was forced to make another emergency landing.
And last week a wheel fell from another Boeing during takeoff – forcing pilots to land in Los Angeles.
The Boeing 777 bound for Japan lost its wheel in mid-air shortly after takeoff from San Francisco airport.
Dramatic footage showed cars in the airport car park being crushed by the falling tire.
In January, a Delta Airlines Boeing 747 lost a front tire while taxiing over the runway.
The pilot of another plane behind could be heard saying, “Hey…Tower, the 75 on the runway just lost the noseband,” in cockpit recordings released by VAS Aviation.
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