Authorities Investigate Death of Former Boeing Quality Manager

(TargetDailyNews.com) – A Boeing whistleblower was found dead in his truck just days after he gave witness testimony against his former employer. He had been scheduled to give further testimony. Preliminary investigations suggest a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head as the cause of death.

John Barnett was a 30-year veteran of the company who retired in 2017. In 2019, he went public with allegations that the company was using substandard parts and problems regarding the emergency oxygen breathing masks on board failing during an emergency.

After leaving the company Barnett spent years exposing misdeeds and other problems. Boeing’s suffered numerous public catastrophes in the last few months. A Virgin Atlantic plane was missing bolts from one of its wings, resulting in the flight being canceled. Another 747 was emitting sparks after an engine failure. And a plug-door-replacement in a 737 Max 9 flew off the plane mid-flight, to give a few examples.

Barnett was engaged in legal action against Boeing for defamation and resulting financial damages. He spent years as a quality control supervisor for the megacorp’s South Carolina production plant. One of the major problems he noticed was there was a rush to get aircraft out the door. He felt that it compromised the safety of the vehicles.

He also gave comments to the BBC that indicated faulty parts were not tracked properly according to protocols, indicating that some could have made it into airplanes. Barnett said that parts that had previously been rejected for incorporation were removed from scrap bins and used on aircraft to keep production quotas high. He also said oxygen masks had failure rates of nearly 25 percent, suggesting one in four could fail in the event of an emergency during a flight.

Social media commentators were quick to suggest that Barnett was “Epsteined” or murdered in a manner that resembled a suicide. The term springs from the death of the infamous child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who was found dead in prison before his trial in August 2019. Epstein’s death officially remains a suicide, but many believe there was foul play.