Boeing employees warn that whistleblower John Burnett ‘made powerful enemies’ before his alleged suicide, as mysterious inconsistencies in his police report revealed ing.
The whistleblower was found dead in a pickup truck in a Charleston, South Carolina, hotel parking lot on March 9. That morning, he was scheduled to finish his personal testimony in a lawsuit against the jet airline company where he has worked for most of his career. .
Charleston police reported that he extended his stay at the Holiday Inn until March 8 and was seen on surveillance footage leaving the hotel that morning.
However, Holiday Inn staff told the Post that he had eaten dinner at the hotel restaurant that night. The police report also noted that Barnett’s driver’s license was still in the room when Barnett was found shot in the head and with a handgun in his hand the next morning.
The alarm was raised after Barnett’s lawyer could not be reached by phone and asked for a welfare check.
Hotel staff found Barnett’s body in the car while responding to a welfare check and called police, who found Barnett with a gunshot wound to the head and still clutching a handgun. The investigation into his death is still ongoing.
Employees at the local Boeing plant, where Barnett worked until he retired in 2017, say the entire community is reeling.
One employee, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, said employees were skeptical about Barnett’s cause of death and were told in advance that it was a suicide.
“What he said actually left a pit in my stomach. And he’s gone now. Maybe he committed suicide,” the source said.
“I don’t know what to believe. We don’t talk about it much on the (assembly) line. We’re on camera from the moment we walk onto the premises. They can hear us. So , no one wants to talk about it at work.
“A lot of people are skeptical because he’s made some pretty powerful enemies.”
Another Boeing employee who spoke to the Post said: “It’s a good job, but you have to stand in line or you won’t be able to work there anymore.”
Boeing did not directly address the allegations, but said in a statement to the Post that it was “saddened by the passing of Mr. Barnett and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Police have not indicated that Boeing is under investigation or that any wrongdoing is suspected.
Meanwhile, an employee at the Holiday Inn where Barnett was found dead in the parking lot told the Post that on the night of February 8, Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a coke, and was carrying a cell phone. He said he scrolled through his phone and seemed to be in good spirits.
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A week after the first incident, when a Boeing plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan after a cracked cockpit window, disaster struck again.
A Boeing 757 lost its front tire in late January while preparing to depart for an international flight. At Atlanta International Airport, a Delta flight bound for Bogota, Colombia, was taxiing across the runway toward takeoff when another plane alerted the control tower to an abnormality.
Shocking photos later revealed that British passengers were alarmed when they noticed pieces of tape stuck to the exterior of a Boeing 787 during a flight to India.
On Monday, March 11, a United Airlines Boeing 777-300 leaked fuel mid-air and was forced to make an emergency landing, marking the airline’s fifth reported accident in just over a week.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary previously said he had “loud complaints” to Boeing about quality control.
Whistleblower John Barnett raised safety concerns at the airline’s factories and gave his first testimony in the bomb case against Boeing. He was found dead in his truck after failing to appear for the second part of Monday’s testimony.
“I didn’t even think about him at all until I heard the news the next day. He didn’t seem upset at all,” the employee said.
Mr. Barnett was a quality control engineer who worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before retiring in 2017.
Two years later, he told the BBC that he cut corners in the rush to get Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jet off the production line.
In multiple interviews, he described how he internally complained to the company about serious safety deficiencies he discovered.
Barnett said authorities took no action out of concern for people’s safety, prompting him to go public.
His lawyers dispute this idea and are calling for a thorough investigation.
“We need more information about what happened to John,” attorneys Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles said in a statement Tuesday.
“The Charleston Police Department needs to thoroughly and accurately investigate this matter and inform the public.
“There was no indication that he would take his own life,” they added. “Nobody can believe it.”
“You can’t ignore the details.”
Steve Chancellor, who has written two books on staged crime scenes and runs Second Look Training and Forensic Consulting, says that when someone dies by suicide, a gun remains in their hands in 25 days. % only.
“Just the fact that there’s a gun in my hand would make me pay attention to it,” he told the Post.
“Because when someone tries to make it look like suicide, a lot of times they make that mistake and end up putting a gun in their hands.”
The police report also states that a “white piece of paper resembling a note” was found in plain view in the passenger seat, but its contents were not disclosed.
