OAN’s Brooke Mallory
11:23am – Thursday, May 2, 2024
A second person to reveal that one of Boeing’s suppliers had left manufacturing defects unattended, just two months after the alleged suicide death of another employee who had raised concerns about the company. Boeing whistleblower also died unexpectedly on Tuesday.
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according to seattle timesJoshua Dean, 45, a former quality auditor for Spirit AeroSystems, passed away Tuesday morning from a mysterious and rapidly spreading infection.
Dean, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, was said to be in excellent health before being hospitalized nearly two weeks ago, the newspaper said.
However, by April 21stcentthe site reported that he was in “extremely critical condition” and had tested positive for pneumonia, MRSA, and influenza B.
Dean underwent dialysis and was intubated before eventually being evacuated to another hospital in Oklahoma City. He also had a stroke, according to a CT scan.
Shortly before his death, doctors were debating whether to amputate his limbs, which had turned black due to infection, leaving his family and a team of medical professionals at a loss.
“He is in the worst condition I have ever known or heard of. The hospital agrees,” his sister-in-law Kristen Dean wrote on Facebook.
Dean passed away on Tuesday.
Dean consistently raised concerns about a number of flaws and deficiencies while working for Spirit AeroSystems, a Kansas-based company that made aircraft parts for Boeing Co. in 2022. He lost his job in less than a year.
“I think they were sending a message to someone else,” Dean said. NPR. “If it’s too loud, I’ll shut it up.”
according to seattle times, Dean, who has been Spirit’s quality auditor since 2019, raised concerns about a part of a Boeing 373 Max aircraft where a hole in the bulkhead was incorrectly drilled. He claimed that raising the issue with management was irrelevant.
He also said he missed another problem with the attachment between the aircraft’s vertical stabilizer and the fuselage because he was too focused on an improperly drilled part.
The problem was eventually discovered, but he still lost his job as a result.
Spirit AeroSystems eventually admitted that the problem was an improperly placed hole. “Both issues caused delays at Boeing manufacturing plants.” post report.
Mr. Dean later filed a complaint with the FAA, and despite evidence that he had been instructed to minimize concerns that he and other employees became aware of, Mr. claimed to have been used as a scapegoat.
Experts say the 33-year-old Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 that crashed is much older than the average age of passenger planes in service today.
He also filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit with the Department of Labor in November 2023.
The newspaper said the matter was still unresolved at the time of his death.
In January, a former colleague of Dean’s confirmed his claims after the door hatch of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 flew off. seattle times.
“In Spirit, we’re known to get emotional if we make too much noise or cause too much trouble,” Dean said. Wall Street Journal. “That doesn’t mean you ignore things completely, but they don’t want you to find everything and write about it.”
It’s been less than two months since Boeing’s first whistleblower, John Barnett, died in March from what authorities said was a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Police said they were still investigating Barnett’s death after his lawyer called for an investigation. His lawyer called for a more thorough investigation, saying: “There was no indication that he was going to take his own life…No one would believe it.”
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