Boeing whistleblower John Barnett discovered lifeless | Aviation

Coroner’s workplace in US state of South Carolina says 62-year-old former Boeing worker died on Saturday.

A former Boeing worker who blew the whistle on alleged security issues on the plane manufacturing big has been discovered lifeless.

John Barnett, 62, died on Saturday from an obvious “self-inflicted” wound, a coroner in South Carolina in america mentioned on Monday.

“Charleston Metropolis Police Division is the investigating company. No additional particulars can be found right now,” the workplace of Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O’Neal instructed Al Jazeera in an announcement.

Boeing, the place Barnett labored for greater than three a long time till his retirement in 2017, expressed condolences on the information of his demise.

“We’re saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our ideas are together with his household and associates,” the Seattle-based plane producer instructed Al Jazeera in an announcement.

The BBC, which first reported the information of Barnett’s demise, mentioned the previous worker had been giving proof in a whistleblower lawsuit towards the corporate in current days.

In 2019, Barnett was quoted by the BBC alleging that Boeing had intentionally fitted planes with defective components and that passengers on its 787 Dreamliner could possibly be left with out oxygen within the occasion of a sudden decompression.

Boeing denied Barnett’s claims on the time, insisting that it adhered to the best security requirements.

Boeing, which dominates the marketplace for industrial plane together with Netherlands-based Airbus, has been below intense scrutiny over its security report since two deadly crashes involving the Boeing 737 MAX in 2018 and 2019.

On Monday, dozens of individuals suffered accidents, most of them minor, when their Boeing plane en path to New Zealand from Australia skilled what airline officers described as a “robust motion” brought on by a “technical occasion”.

The incident was the newest in a collection of safety-related occasions for the reason that starting of March, together with an engine hearth that pressured a Boeing 737 to make an emergency touchdown in Houston, Texas shortly after takeoff.

On Saturday, US media shops reported that prosecutors had opened a prison investigation into January’s mid-flight blowout of a Boeing 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airways.

A preliminary report by the US Nationwide Transportation Security Board into the incident discovered proof suggesting that 4 key bolts designed to carry the door in place had been lacking.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mentioned final week it had given Boeing 90 days to give you a plan to appropriate issues in its manufacturing and lack procedures following an audit that recognized “non-compliance points”.

A separate FAA report launched final month discovered severe issues with Boeing’s security tradition, together with fears of retaliation amongst workers with security issues.

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