Boeing Company： Deeply saddened by the death of the whistleblower who reported the safety problems of Boeing aircraft in the United States.

According to Cailian News, John Barnett, a former senior employee of Boeing who repeatedly reported the manufacturing problems of Boeing passenger planes, was found dead in his truck parked in the hotel parking lot last Saturday (March 9).

The US media quoted the coroner’s office in Charleston County, South Carolina as saying that 62-year-old barnett died of obvious "self-injured" last Friday (March 8) local time, and the police are investigating the matter. Even a few media directly reported that barnett shot himself and died.

Barnett’s lawyer told the media that his death was "tragic".

Boeing said it was deeply saddened by the news of Mr. barnett’s death. It is understood that barnett worked for Boeing for 32 years until he retired for "health reasons" in 2017. Since 2010, barnett has been the quality manager of Boeing North Charleston factory, which was responsible for manufacturing Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Agent John Barney testified

In 2019, barnett Real Name reported that the factory workers still installed the parts on the plane, knowing that the parts were defective. He pointed out that tests have shown that as many as a quarter of the oxygen supply system may be defective, so that the oxygen mask may not work properly when needed.

Barnett said at that time that he was worried that the company’s eagerness to promote the production of new aircraft would mean that the assembly process would be hasty and the safety would be affected. But Boeing denied this, insisting that "safety, quality and integrity are the core of Boeing’s values".

John barnett (third from right)

The whistleblower also told the media that the workers did not follow the factory’s procedures for tracking parts, resulting in the loss of defective parts. Barnett also revealed that in some cases, substandard parts will even be taken out of the scrap box and installed on the aircraft under construction to prevent the production line from being delayed.

Barnett said that he had informed Boeing’s management of his concerns, but the company had not taken any action. And the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did find that at least 53 "unqualified" parts in the North Charleston factory were unknown, which confirmed barnett’s accusation and Boeing was ordered to take remedial action.

Regarding the oxygen supply system, Boeing also admitted that "it was found that some oxygen cylinders from suppliers were not deployed correctly. We solved this problem with the supplier and removed these oxygen cylinders from production. These defective oxygen cylinders will not appear on the plane. "

After his retirement, barnett launched a long-term legal lawsuit against Boeing. He accused the company of defaming his character and hindering his career, which eventually led to his retirement. The company’s response is that barnett himself had a retirement plan long ago, and he did it voluntarily.

According to the media, barnett was still being interviewed about the case in the last period of his life. Last week, he published a formal testimony, which was questioned by Boeing’s lawyer and his own lawyer respectively. Barnett’s lawyer said that he was scheduled to have further communication with barnett last Saturday, but he didn’t show up.

Boeing is caught in the whirlpool of quality problems

Recently, Boeing and its main supplier, Spirit Aerosystems, are under strict scrutiny. In January this year, an accident happened on a MAX 9 passenger plane of Alaska Airlines, and a Mense fell off the side of the cabin. However, it should be pointed out that barnett’s accusation did not mention Boeing’s MAX model and the manufacturing plant in Washington State.

Yesterday, a Boeing 787-9 passenger plane flying from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand had technical problems. During the flight, it plunged sharply and "dived violently" for a few seconds, causing passengers to hit the top of the cabin, injuring at least 50 people and injuring other crew members.

Previously, Aengus Kelly, Boeing’s big customer and CEO of AerCap, the world’s largest aircraft leasing company, mentioned that he has always supported Boeing and its management, but "Boeing must now focus 100% on quality and safety indicators. In this respect, financial indicators are completely secondary to the company’s future. "

Scott Kirby, another big customer of Boeing and CEO of United Airlines, is more direct. He publicly expressed his disappointment with Boeing’s manufacturing problems. In an exclusive interview, Kirby blamed the problem of Boeing’s corporate culture on the M&A transaction with rival McDonnell Douglas in the 1990s.

Some analysts believe that after the "M&A of the Century", Boeing’s original corporate culture with an engineer style was disintegrated by McDonnell Douglas’s pro-Wall Street financial culture, and both the board of directors and senior executives joined a considerable number of financial people.

In addition, in order to encourage management to push up the stock price, Boeing once linked a considerable part of the structure of executive compensation to the stock price. Kirby said: "My own assessment is that this can be traced back to the merger with McDonnell Douglas, which started the process of corporate culture transformation."

Original title: "Whistleblower" who exposed Boeing’s safety problems suddenly died

Editor: Zhou Yang Editor: Liao Yi Audit: Feng Fei