The ongoing saga of mechanical issues with Boeing aircraft has taken so many bizarre twists and turns, you’d be forgiven for thinking it sounds more like the plot of an Alfred Hitchcock film than reality.
But truth is stranger than fiction, as they say, and new revelations regarding the fate of the now deceased Boeing whistleblower have considerably thickened the plot.
As reported in the New York Post, current Boeing employees have expressed their disbelief that Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, 62, who was found dead in the parking lot of his hotel on March 9, apparently died by suicide right when he was set to continue his testimony.
These anonymous employees told the Post that “A lot of people are skeptical, because he made some pretty powerful enemies.”
Few can say for sure yet whether he died by suicide or by foul play, but UK news outlet the Metro reports an interesting wrinkle in this case.
Trending:
According to the Metro, a close family friend, only identified as Jennifer, claimed that Barnett told her he wasn’t concerned for his safety.
But, when she pressed him, he told her “if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.”
Interesting. Most interesting indeed.
Barnett had worked at Boeing for over 30 years as a quality engineer, before he began speaking publicly about Boeing’s massive internal failures he witnessed at their Charleston, South Carolina plant.
Was there foul play in the death of Barnett?
Failures which, as most of us know all too well, led to the recent public humiliations of their aircrafts failing en masse.
As The American Prospect tells us, Barnett’s lawyer, Robert Turkewitz, and his brother, Rodney Barnett, were shocked by his apparent suicide, and themselves believe it might have been foul play.
According to Turkewitz, “He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him. We didn’t see any indication that he would take his own life. We need more information … no one can believe it.”
Now, the tragic reality is suicides often come seemingly out of nowhere, especially for men like Barnett, who, as the Prospect notes, suffered from PTSD after his six years at the dysfunctional Charleston plant.
That said, together with the revelation from Barnett’s friend, Jennifer, the timing is awfully suspicious.
Granted, the Prospect itself expresses skepticism in this regard.
If nothing else, there are probably innumerable whistleblowers at Boeing waiting to come forward.
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett ‘made powerful enemies’ before alleged suicide, workers warn as discrepancy on police report emerges https://t.co/jPAahKZS8q pic.twitter.com/Vt3rHyLrhv
— New York Post (@nypost) March 15, 2024
That said, Barnett’s prominence and ongoing lawsuit in the face of these disastrous mechanical failures creates a suggestive picture.
Regardless of whether Barnett died by his own hand or was murdered, it’s clear that Boeing desperately needs to clean house.
The product they make isn’t something where a quality failure is at most a minor inconvenience.
When commercial aircrafts fail, they can endanger lives in an instant.
Boeing executives need to own up to their failures and conduct a massive overhaul of their business, or more people will die.
And they won’t be able to blame the deaths on apparent suicides.
