John Barnett

John Mitchell Barnett February 23 1962 March 9 2024 was an American whistleblower who was known for his substantiated safety and quality reports to the Federal Aviation Administration FAA about Boeings production of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner Barnett worked in quality control at Boeing for 32 years serving for seven as a manager at Boeing South Carolina Barnett was one of several employees to go public with The New York Times about malpractices beginning in 2019 at Boeing and was featured in the 2022 Netflix documentary titled Downfall The Case Against Boeing During his time in South Carolina Barnett documented and reported several safety and quality issues to Boeing and the FAA Boeings own internal investigations corroborated his complaints about malfunctioning emergency oxygen systems and in 2017 the FAA ordered remedial actions in regards to his complaints about nonconforming parts and metal shavings Barnett subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint with Occupational Safety and Health Administration OSHA under the FAAs Whistleblower Protection Program AIR 21 which was closed by OSHA in favor of Boeing after a fouryear investigation in 2021 In 2021 Barnett and his attorneys appealed the decision and amended the original complaint alleging that the company undermined his career because he had raised safety concerns which Boeing denied As of March 12 2024 his whistleblower case against Boeing was pending to be continued under his estate In March 2024 after he failed to report for his third day of deposition he was found dead of a gunshot wound The Charleston County coroner described the wound as selfinflicted A conspiracy theory that Boeing had assassinated him spread amongst the public Video surveillance and other evidence examined by the Charleston Police Department showed that Barnetts cause of death was suicide by firearm caused by a period of serious personal distress related to his participation in the whistleblower case Description above from the Wikipedia article John Barnett whistleblower licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia