Joshua Dean, 45, of Wichita, Kansas, worked as a quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems’ main manufacturing site, which supplies various aircraft parts to Boeing.
door plug The incident involved jumping from an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX plane that forced a rough landing in January. Mr. Dean, who has a degree in mechanical engineering and decades of experience, was one of the first whistleblowers to claim that Spirit turned a blind eye to defects in the controversial airliner. .
Mr. Dean died suddenly on Tuesday. It comes weeks after Boeing whistleblower John Burnett was caught in a Charleston deposition and allegedly killed himself in a truck outside a South Carolina hotel. Police are still investigating Barnett’s death.
Barnett and Dean, both represented by the same South Carolina-based law firm, raised awareness about quality control issues in Boeing’s supply chain.
background
according to Dean was fired in April 2023 for an alleged inspection error that resulted in a defective tail fin fitting being shipped to Boeing, The Seattle Times reported. Dean claimed that he was canned in retaliation for repeatedly reporting mistakes he observed on the factory floor. The mistake was ignored by Spirit’s supervisors, Dean suggested. He made the same statement in November 2023 when he filed a complaint for unfair dismissal with the Ministry of Labor.
Former colleague Lance Thompson told the Times that Dean’s attention to detail irritated the mechanics on the shop floor.
“His actions were valuable and he discovered some things that people might not expect,” Thompson said. Dean “was looking over his shoulder at them, and he caught them because no one else was catching them.”
Investors filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Spirit in January, alleging financial harm caused by a quality-control scandal that caused the company’s stock price to plummet. The company’s former CEO Tom Gentile, who resigned in October, and CFO Mark Suchinski were named co-defendants in the lawsuit.
“Spirit’s corporate culture, which prioritizes production numbers and short-term financial results over product quality, resulted in certain quality defects,” the complaint states.
report Wichita Eagle.
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lawsuit contained Dean’s allegations against Spirit, including that he was threatened when he tried to draw attention to his supervisor’s deficiencies.
Dean identified a 737 MAX’s aft pressure bank head being improperly drilled in 2022, according to the complaint. This was a particular problem because aircraft parts help maintain pressure during flight. Dean submitted a written report to his supervisor about the issue and alerted other supervisors.But this flaw was apparently hidden from Boeing and its investors.
Until Augustabout 10 months later.
The complaint alleges that Mr. Dean’s continued efforts to highlight such deficiencies led to his termination.
“They went after him and fired him to make it seem like there was one crazy man responsible,” Thompson said.
In his sworn testimony, Dean noted that Spirit was virtually wiped out by the pandemic, with too many experienced workers retiring or being laid off. In fact, Dean was let go during layoffs in 2020, but returned the following year in a different role.
The whistleblower said the turnover “required more rework and repairs” due to a decline in the quality of work.
These problems were said to be exacerbated by the company’s “culture of unwillingness to look for or find problems.”
A Spirit spokesperson said of the lawsuit, “We strongly disagree with the plaintiffs’ claims.”
dean
Said In January, the Wall Street Journal said, “Spirit is known to be swayed by too much noise and too much trouble.”
“That doesn’t mean you ignore things completely, but they don’t want you to find everything and write about it,” he added.
sudden death
Dean reportedly passed away on Tuesday morning due to a sudden and rapid spread of infection.
His aunt, Carol Parsons, told The Seattle Times that Dean had become ill two weeks before his death and went to the hospital with difficulty breathing. Things reportedly worsened at the hospital, where he was intubated and later developed pneumonia. Soon, he began to suffer from MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus bacteria.
Dean’s condition rapidly deteriorated. His aunt said he was flown from Wichita to a hospital in Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma City, he was placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenator that resupplied his body with oxygenated blood. The paper further revealed that doctors sedated him and then put him on dialysis. A subsequent CT scan revealed that he had also suffered a stroke.
“What he went through was brutal,” Parsons said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Before his death, doctors even considered amputating his hands and feet, which had turned black due to infection.
new york post
shown Doctors and family members were surprised by the devastating and fast-acting nature of the disease.
“His condition is the worst I have ever known or heard of,” his sister-in-law Kristen Dean wrote on Facebook. She said: “The hospital agrees.
The whistleblower’s family said Sunday night that he was “giving up the fight” and “refusing to allow them to perform life-saving treatment.”
report time.
But her mother said: “I told the doctor that I didn’t know what I wanted, that I definitely wanted to live, that I was scared, scared and depressed.”
Brian Knowles, the lawyer who represented the two deceased Boeing whistleblowers, told Time: “Josh’s death is a loss to the aviation community and to airline passengers.”
“He had great courage to stand up for what he felt was true and right and raised issues of quality and safety,” Knowles added.
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