The recent death of former Boeing Co. worker John Barnett has brought attention back to the production standards at the planemaker’s North Charleston 787 Dreamliner factory. Barnett, who worked at Boeing for over three decades, raised concerns about safety threats due to faulty parts and oversight issues at the factory.
According to the BBC, Barnett died from a self-inflicted wound on March 9, just days before he was set to give further evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing. His body was found in his truck in a hotel car park after he failed to appear for questioning.
In 2019, Barnett had spoken out about the problems at the North Charleston factory, including the installation of faulty parts and the presence of metal shavings inside the planes. He had also accused under-pressure workers of fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line.
Boeing’s safety record has been under scrutiny following a recent incident involving a door plug on a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaskan Airlines. The company has been unable to locate records of the work performed on the panel that failed, leading to a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
With regulators giving Boeing 90 days to address “systemic” quality-control issues, the spotlight is once again on the planemaker’s production standards and the concerns raised by whistleblowers like John Barnett.