Boeing whistleblower found dead in US
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Poor fellow... Whistle-blowing and its decision/regret/sustain spin-off always applies almost unimaginable pressures to the individual concerned. Its associated backlash can make them simply unendurable.
Now he at least has found some peace...
Now he at least has found some peace...
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Unable at this point to find any indication of which hotel the parking lot is attached to. Charleston seems to me to be a potentially hostile environment for a well known ex-Boeing North Charleston plant employee-turned whistleblower to give evidence in a lawsuit against his former employer.
Whatever the circumstances of Mr Barnett's passing prove to be, here is hoping that the contributions he has already made and any that come to light now that he is gone succeed in achieving the improvements and accountability in airline safety that Mr Barnett was aiming for.
Whatever the circumstances of Mr Barnett's passing prove to be, here is hoping that the contributions he has already made and any that come to light now that he is gone succeed in achieving the improvements and accountability in airline safety that Mr Barnett was aiming for.
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https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/boeing-whistleblower-found-dead-in-charleston-after-break-in-depositions/
Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead in Charleston After Break in Depositions
By Editor
Corporate Crime Reporter 2024.03.10
In an email to Corporate Crime Reporter, [Barnett’s lawyer Brian] Knowles wrote that Barnett “was supposed to do day three of his deposition here in Charleston on his AIR21 case.” (AIR21 refers to a federal law that provides whistleblower protection for employees in the aviation industry.)
“Today is a tragic day,” Knowles wrote. “John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours under the rules on Thursday. I cross examined him all day yesterday (Friday) and did not finish. We agreed to continue this morning at 10 a.m. (co-counsel) Rob (Turkewitz) kept calling this morning and his (Barnett’s) phone would go to voicemail. We then asked the hotel to check on him. They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged’ self-inflicted gunshot. We drove to the hotel and spoke with the police and the coroner.”
Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead in Charleston After Break in Depositions
By Editor
Corporate Crime Reporter 2024.03.10
In an email to Corporate Crime Reporter, [Barnett’s lawyer Brian] Knowles wrote that Barnett “was supposed to do day three of his deposition here in Charleston on his AIR21 case.” (AIR21 refers to a federal law that provides whistleblower protection for employees in the aviation industry.)
“Today is a tragic day,” Knowles wrote. “John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours under the rules on Thursday. I cross examined him all day yesterday (Friday) and did not finish. We agreed to continue this morning at 10 a.m. (co-counsel) Rob (Turkewitz) kept calling this morning and his (Barnett’s) phone would go to voicemail. We then asked the hotel to check on him. They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged’ self-inflicted gunshot. We drove to the hotel and spoke with the police and the coroner.”
Just too sad.
Moderator
A note from a moderator:
This is very sad, I think that we all agree about that. Let's withhold speculation about exactly what happened, or possible factors or associations, until those who might investigate have reported their findings. This event is not like an aviation accident, which we might discuss with some expertise. This event is a personal tragedy, with respect to which, at present, we have no information to associate anyone else.
Pilot DAR
This is very sad, I think that we all agree about that. Let's withhold speculation about exactly what happened, or possible factors or associations, until those who might investigate have reported their findings. This event is not like an aviation accident, which we might discuss with some expertise. This event is a personal tragedy, with respect to which, at present, we have no information to associate anyone else.
Pilot DAR
You can’t stop news speculation and for those involved in corporate damage limitation this is a difficult time.
Mass media love this sort of stuff.
Mass media love this sort of stuff.
Last edited by Pilot DAR; 12th Mar 2024 at 12:28. Reason: Removed my name from the comment
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Statement from Barnett's lawyers:
“John was a brave, honest man of the highest integrity. He cared dearly about his family, his friends, the Boeing company, his Boeing co-workers, and the pilots and people who flew on Boeing aircraft. We have rarely met someone with a more sincere and forthright character.
“In the course of his job as a quality manager at Boeing South Carolina, John learned of and exposed very serious safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was retaliated against and subjected to a hostile work environment, which is the subject of his pending AIR-21 case.
John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end. He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.
We are all devastated. We need more information about what happened to John. The Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and tell the public what they find out. No detail can be left unturned.”
~Statement from Barnett’s lawyers Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles
https://www.counton2.com/news/local-...-john-barnett/
“In the course of his job as a quality manager at Boeing South Carolina, John learned of and exposed very serious safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was retaliated against and subjected to a hostile work environment, which is the subject of his pending AIR-21 case.
John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end. He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.
We are all devastated. We need more information about what happened to John. The Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and tell the public what they find out. No detail can be left unturned.”
~Statement from Barnett’s lawyers Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles
https://www.counton2.com/news/local-...-john-barnett/
Last edited by OldnGrounded; 12th Mar 2024 at 19:32. Reason: Fix formatting.
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Typical reasons someone dies from a gunshot in America:
1) 50% of shootings are someone the victim knew or a misidentification in a purposeful shooting (more typical in drive-bys)
2) around 30% of shootings are from the demons they were fighting and could no longer overcome.
3) a large number remaining are during robberies.
4) a smaller number are accidents or mishandling the weapon. Gets more likely if the person got a gun for self-defense recently.
No one can tell about the demons. Many fight them so long they manage to let no one know.
Telling the difference between that and the others? Not at this point.
I cannot imagine any conspiracy to kill a whistleblower during testimony. As the British postal disaster points out, it is far easier to discredit the witness and bury the evidence. Much of what he claimed the FAA had already investigated; the FAA would have the most to gain. but why would they care?
Let the investigation continue, with the knowledge that coming to any conclusion may be problematic.
1) 50% of shootings are someone the victim knew or a misidentification in a purposeful shooting (more typical in drive-bys)
2) around 30% of shootings are from the demons they were fighting and could no longer overcome.
3) a large number remaining are during robberies.
4) a smaller number are accidents or mishandling the weapon. Gets more likely if the person got a gun for self-defense recently.
No one can tell about the demons. Many fight them so long they manage to let no one know.
Telling the difference between that and the others? Not at this point.
I cannot imagine any conspiracy to kill a whistleblower during testimony. As the British postal disaster points out, it is far easier to discredit the witness and bury the evidence. Much of what he claimed the FAA had already investigated; the FAA would have the most to gain. but why would they care?
Let the investigation continue, with the knowledge that coming to any conclusion may be problematic.
Some clarification from those of ample legal wisdom and insight…
The media keeps reporting Barnett as a whistleblower in connection with the lawsuit that he was providing deposition for.
Some reports say this deposition was for a defamation lawsuit against Boeing with my assumption then being that Barnett was the plaintiff? If so, he wouldn’t have had whistleblower status (AIR21 WPP protections). I get it that Boeing’s potential defamation would be related to his previous whistleblower activity but a whistleblower claim would have been addressed through DOL/OSHA rather than a individual lawsuit.
I also wonder about the wisdom of Barnett’s attorneys advising him to pursue defamation against a large corporation that can afford top-tier lawyers with a loss putting Barnett in financial peril (depending on the billing arrangement with his attorneys).
The media keeps reporting Barnett as a whistleblower in connection with the lawsuit that he was providing deposition for.
Some reports say this deposition was for a defamation lawsuit against Boeing with my assumption then being that Barnett was the plaintiff? If so, he wouldn’t have had whistleblower status (AIR21 WPP protections). I get it that Boeing’s potential defamation would be related to his previous whistleblower activity but a whistleblower claim would have been addressed through DOL/OSHA rather than a individual lawsuit.
I also wonder about the wisdom of Barnett’s attorneys advising him to pursue defamation against a large corporation that can afford top-tier lawyers with a loss putting Barnett in financial peril (depending on the billing arrangement with his attorneys).
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No claim of legal wisdom or insight is made here - and it's not as if I needed to carry "the drag chain of the law" in order to consult the Times of New York. (description of law attributed to the late Howard Cosell, an American attorney prior to his sports broadcasting career)
"Mr. Barnett filed the complaint against Boeing with the U.S. Labor Department in 2017 under the AIR21 Whistleblower Protection Program, which protects employees of plane manufacturers who report information pertaining to air carrier safety violations. He left the company that year.
* * *
An administrative law judge with the Labor Department was hearing the whistle-blower case, which was in discovery. A trial had been set for June."
The claim reportedly was for retaliation. The NYT article in any event doesn't reference any defamation claim or lawsuit, so I don't know. Possibly the DOL complaint includes allegations about defamatory remarks made by management as part of an alleged pattern or scheme of retaliatory steps taken by the Company.
The article also reports that Counsel for Mr. Barnett indicated the family will continue to pursue the legal action.
(excerpt from NYT, March 12 2024, S. Ember by-line).
"Mr. Barnett filed the complaint against Boeing with the U.S. Labor Department in 2017 under the AIR21 Whistleblower Protection Program, which protects employees of plane manufacturers who report information pertaining to air carrier safety violations. He left the company that year.
* * *
An administrative law judge with the Labor Department was hearing the whistle-blower case, which was in discovery. A trial had been set for June."
The claim reportedly was for retaliation. The NYT article in any event doesn't reference any defamation claim or lawsuit, so I don't know. Possibly the DOL complaint includes allegations about defamatory remarks made by management as part of an alleged pattern or scheme of retaliatory steps taken by the Company.
The article also reports that Counsel for Mr. Barnett indicated the family will continue to pursue the legal action.
(excerpt from NYT, March 12 2024, S. Ember by-line).
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https://prospect.org/justice/2024-03...whistleblower/
At Boeing’s Everett, Washington, facility, each quality assurance inspector was assigned to examine the work of 15 mechanics; in Charleston, that number was 50, and the mechanics themselves more often than not were guys who had been “flipping burgers” a month ago, as Swampy put it in multiple interviews. So every day, the workers he supervised inspected planes that had been assembled by complete amateurs, while the bosses to whom he reported insisted the fry cooks were perfectly qualified to self-inspect their own workmanship. “Every day was a battle to get Boeing management to do the right thing,” Swampy’s brother Rodney Barnett recalled in an email.
Deliberate nondocumentation was a cornerstone of the new Boeing culture with which Swampy came into constant conflict. In 2014, he was reprimanded in a performance review for documenting “process violations” in writing instead of flagging issues verbally and “working in the gray areas”—i.e., without leaving a paper trail. Nondocumentation was part of a larger “theory,” Swampy explained in an interview earlier this year with TMZ, that “quality is overhead and not value-added.”
Swampy gently described how his team had been taken off a job for finding 300 defects on a section of fuselage, and his failed efforts to prevent mechanics from breaking into the cage where defective parts were stored before suppliers retrieved them to be repaired. Managers stole parts from the cage so frequently that he had the locks changed
Were I to write a novel, who would want to end him would be among the mechanics who he knew were putting defective parts into airplanes.
Or he recently got a gun "for protection" and fumbled it trying to get it into a pocket or out of a holster in the confines of a car seat.
Unless there is a camera recording someone leaving that vehicle after the shot it's going to be unclear.
Or he recently got a gun "for protection" and fumbled it trying to get it into a pocket or out of a holster in the confines of a car seat.
Unless there is a camera recording someone leaving that vehicle after the shot it's going to be unclear.
Reminds me of the old Soviet intelligence apparatus saying (paraphrasing), “it’s easy to commit murder; it’s much harder to commit a good natural death.”