The sky is falling, at least for Boeing.
Just two months after another whistleblower allegedly shot himself in the head, a second whistleblower has died under mysterious circumstances. Both lawyers hope their deaths will not scare away the at least 10 other whistleblowers who are calling for the company to clear its case. Activities.
Joshua Dean, 45, a former quality auditor for Spirit AeroSystems, which assembles Boeing fuselages, died Tuesday morning from a mysterious and rapidly spreading infection.
Dean’s death comes less than two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, 62, died on March 9 of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Barnett, who worked for Boeing for 32 years, was found dead in a Dodge Ram truck in a South Carolina hotel parking lot, holding a silver handgun in his hand. The second half of his testimony in a bombshell lawsuit against the company.
At the same time, Boeing last month announced a loss of $355 million due to lower revenue in the first quarter. It’s another sign of the crisis gripping aircraft manufacturers, which are facing increased scrutiny over aircraft safety and mounting criticism from the United States of shoddy workmanship. Number of surviving whistleblowers.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s sudden announcement in March that he would step down by the end of the year was widely seen as a response to the ongoing safety crisis.
Brian Knowles, a Charleston, South Carolina, attorney who represented Barnett and Dean, hopes their deaths were not in vain.
“These people were heroes, and so are all whistleblowers. They loved the company and wanted to help make it better,” Knowles told the Post.
“They’re not speaking out to offend or for fame. They’re voicing their concerns because people’s lives are at risk.”
Mr. Knowles and others involved in the Boeing scandal have been reluctant to speculate on the conspiracy theories swirling around the deaths of the two whistleblowers.
“I knew John Burnett for seven years and I never saw anything that suggested he was going to take his own life,” Knowles told the Post. .
“Again, I’ve never dealt with anyone who has[suicide]so maybe you don’t notice the signs. I don’t know.”
Knowles noted that police in Charleston, South Carolina, are still finalizing their investigation into Barnett’s death, and that it could take weeks of testing to uncover more details about Dean’s death.
Spirit AeroSystems spokesman Joe Buccino called Dean “an incredible loss.” (This company is not to be confused with Spirit Airlines.) “Our focus here is on his loved ones.”
Buccino claimed that Spirit “encourages” employees to raise concerns and that workers are “hiding under protection.”
A Boeing spokesperson declined to answer questions about Barnett, but said in a statement that OSHA has determined that it did not retaliate against Barnett and that the issues Barnett raised were not related to “aircraft safety.” The company stated that its own analysis found that there was no effect on sexuality.
“We are saddened by the death of Mr. Barnett and our thoughts remain with his family and friends,” the statement said.
“We encourage all employees to speak up when a problem arises. Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”
That Boeing and Spirit are “encouraging” employees to speak out is news to other Boeing whistleblowers.
Instead, they say they were retaliated against or ignored.
ed pearsonThe 61-year-old former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 aircraft factory in Renton, Washington, left Boeing six years ago. aviation safety foundation.
He tried to no avail to get Boeing executives to halt production of the plane before two Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people and grounded the plane.
“This is a volatile company right now from top to bottom,” Pearson told the Post. “Senior corporate leaders are so obsessed with not acknowledging the truth that they can’t admit anything.”
Pearson didn’t mince words. testified before Congress Last month, he said he believed his bosses at Boeing led what he called a “criminal cover-up.”
“Boeing is an American icon,” Pearson said. “This company is very important to our country, both economically and from a national security perspective, both in civil aviation and military defense. But things don’t work out if the wrong person is driving the bus.”
Mr. Barnett was a quality control engineer who worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before retiring in 2017.
Two years later, he broke his silence, warning that Boeing had cut corners to speed up the 787 Dreamliner’s entry into service and filing an internal complaint with the company about what he claimed were serious safety flaws. has been talked about in numerous interviews.
After Mr. Burnett apparently committed suicide in March, Boeing employees told the Post that Mr. Burnett had made a “powerful enemy,” and that employees believed that Mr. Burnett’s death was a suicide. Some expressed skepticism about certain things.
Dean sounded the alarm in 2022 while working at Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems, which makes key aircraft parts for Boeing Co.
He was a quality auditor when he raised concerns about improperly drilled bulkhead holes in parts of the 737 Max.
However, he claimed that reporting the issue to management had no effect.
After less than a year, he was fired.
“I think they were sending a message to someone else,” Dean later said. told NPR About his firing. “If it’s too loud, I’ll shut it up.”
Boeing is facing whistleblower testimony and a congressional investigation.
A damning House of Commons report released in September 2020 found that the two 737 Max crashes were the “horrific culmination” of “repeated and serious failures” by the airline and aviation safety regulators.
“Boeing was a Seattle company. At the time, the typical Boeing CEO was a super Midwestern farm boy who saw airplanes as a kid and went to Seattle to conquer the world.” Craig Jenks, who runs the Line/Aircraft Projects consulting firm, told the Post.
“Then in the 1980s, financial people started taking over and moved the headquarters to Chicago and then to Washington, D.C.. That means senior management is never on the factory floor.”
The most high-profile safety lapse occurred in January when a fuselage panel on a new Alaska Airlines 737 plane was blown off. But late last month, a safety slide fell from a Delta 767 and, in complete irony, washed up in front of Alaska Airlines’ home. Lawyers are suing Boeing over safety issues.
Whistleblower in Alaska Airlines case told the Seattle Times Boeing claims responsibility, and Boeing records show that after the plane was delivered from Spirit, the panels were removed and reinstalled at Boeing’s Renton factory, except for four critical bolts. found.
Panels flew off in the sky, but fortunately the altitude was low enough that the plane did not depressurize.
“This… is very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the culture of quality in certain parts of the business,” the whistleblower told the Seattle Times.
Numerous Boeing employees have claimed to the New York Times that Boeing: Mechanics can now approve their own workcuts away the layers of safety guarantees.
“Profits have overtaken Boeing’s historic pride,” Peter Lake, an aviation expert who has investigated numerous plane crashes over the years, told the Post.
“Now it’s all corporate greed. It’s become a standard joke that if there’s something wrong with a plane, people say it’s Boeing’s fault.
“Southwest Airlines recently had an engine failure, and people ignorantly blamed Boeing. This shows what kind of cloud the company is under.
“No one knows if they will be able to get out of this disaster on their own.”
