A former Boeing worker who blew the whistle on alleged security issues on the plane producer has been discovered useless within the US.
John Barnett died on Saturday from an apparently “self-inflicted” gunshot wound, a coroner in South Carolina confirmed to the BBC.
The 62-year-old was a high quality supervisor for Boeing for 30 years earlier than retiring in 2017.
The BBC, which first reported the information of Mr Barnett’s loss of life, stated he had been giving proof in a whistleblower lawsuit towards the corporate within the days earlier than his loss of life.
In 2019, Mr Barnett instructed the BBC that as much as 1 / 4 of the oxygen methods might be defective and may not work in an emergency.
He additionally claimed defective elements had been intentionally fitted to planes on one manufacturing line the place the meeting course of was rushed and security was compromised.
Boeing denied each claims.
In an announcement, Mr Barnett’s household stated his whistleblower grievance, filed in 2017, was resulting from go to trial in June.
“He was trying ahead to having his day in court docket and hoped that it might drive Boeing to vary its tradition.
“John carried all this on his shoulders to try to bring this all to light in the interest of the flying public.”
The BBC reported that Mr Barnett had been resulting from face questioning from legal professionals about his whistleblowing on Saturday however didn’t flip up.
When enquiries had been made at his resort, he was discovered useless in his car within the resort automotive park.
His lawyer instructed the BBC Mr Barnett’s loss of life was “tragic”.
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His loss of life comes as Boeing faces a sequence of safety-related occasions. On Monday, 50 folks had been injured when certainly one of its plane suffered a “technical” situation mid-air.
In February, the top of US aviation regulator the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) stated the present security system was “not working” and that the physique was rising its oversight of Boeing and reviewing its observe.
It adopted an early January mid-flight blowout through which a door plug blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 Alaska Airlines plane.
MAX 9 planes throughout the US had been grounded for round three weeks so emergency door panels might be urgently inspected and the corporate elevated checks throughout all of its vegetation and suppliers.
Source: information.sky.com”