Boeing whistleblower John Barnett ‘made powerful enemies’ before his death, as workers ‘skeptical’ he killed himself
Boeing workers warn that whistleblower John Barnett “made powerful enemies” before his alleged suicide, as a puzzling discrepancy on his police report has emerged.
The whistleblower was found dead in his pickup truck in a Charleston, South Carolina, hotel parking lot on March 9, the same morning he was due to conclude private testimony in a lawsuit against the jet company where he had worked for most of his career.
According to a report by Charleston police, he had extended his stay at the Holiday Inn until March 8 and was caught on surveillance video leaving the hotel that morning.
However, staff at the Holiday Inn told The Post he ate dinner in the hotel’s restaurant that night.
The police report also noted Barnett’s driver’s license was still in his room when he was found with a gunshot wound to the head and a pistol in his hand the following morning.
The alarm had been raised by Barnett’s lawyers when they couldn’t reach him on the phone and requested a welfare check.
A hotel staff member found Barnett’s body in the truck while responding to the welfare check request and alerted police, who found him still clutching a pistol and with a gunshot wound to his head.
An investigation into his death is ongoing.
Employees at the local Boeing plant where Barnett had worked until retiring in 2017 say the whole community is shaken up.
One employee, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity, said workers were skeptical about the cause of Barnett’s death, which has been preliminarily labeled a suicide.
“It actually gives me a pit in my stomach because of what he’s been saying, and he’s dead now. Maybe he killed himself,” the source said.
“I don’t know what to believe. We don’t really talk about it on the (assembly) line. We’re on camera from the minute we get on the property. They can hear us. So no one wants to talk about it at work.
“A lot of people are skeptical, because he made some pretty powerful enemies.”
Another Boeing employee who spoke to The Post said: “Nothing surprises me when it comes to Boeing. It’s a good job but you’ve got to stay in line. If you don’t, you won’t work there anymore.”
Boeing did not directly address the claims but told The Post in a statement: “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Police have not indicated that Boeing is under investigation or suspected of any foul play.
Meanwhile, an employee who works at the Holiday Inn where Barnett was found dead in the parking lot told The Post Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a Coke, scrolled on his phone and seemed fine on the evening of March 8.
“I didn’t think of him at all until I heard the news the next day. He didn’t seem upset at all,” the employee said.
Barnett was a quality control engineer who worked for Boeing for more than three decades before he retired in 2017.
Two years later, he told the BBC that Boeing cut corners by rushing to get its 787 Dreamliner jets off the production line and into service.
He gave numerous interviews describing how he had complained internally to the company about what he claimed were serious safety flaws he had detected.
Catch up on Boeing's ongoing airplane fiasco
Boeing has recently been plagued by safety concerns that began Jan. 5 after a door panel blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet during a flight from Oregon to California. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane — which was operated by Alaska Airlines — appeared to be missing four key bolts.
Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, threatened to shun Boeing after the carrier’s fleet of MAX 9 aircraft was grounded in the wake of the near-disastrous Alaska Airlines door blowout.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, warned that another midair door blowout like the Boeing 737 MAX 9 fiasco “can happen again,” adding there was a “problem with the process” of production.
Disaster struck again a week after the initial incident when a Boeing plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan due to a crack in the cockpit window.
A Boeing 757 lost its front tire as the aircraft was preparing to depart for an international flight in late January. At Atlanta International Airport, a Delta flight bound for Bogota, Colombia, was taxiing across the runway into takeoff position when another plane alerted the control tower that something was amiss.
Later, a UK passenger was alarmed after noticing pieces of tape on the exterior of a Boeing 787 during a flight to India, as seen in shocking photos.
A United Airlines Boeing 777-300 aircraft suffered a midair fuel leak and was forced to make an emergency landing Monday, March 11, marking the fifth incident the airline reported in a little over a week.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary previously said he’s made “loud complaints” to Boeing over quality control.
Whistleblower John Barnett raised safety concerns at the airline’s factories and provided his first testimony at a bombshell lawsuit against Boeing. He was found dead in his truck after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony on Monday.
Barnett said the company had not taken action, spurring him to go public, out of concern for people’s safety.
His lawyers are challenging the notion that he committed suicide and are calling for a thorough investigation.
“We need more information about what happened to John,” attorneys Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles said in a statement Tuesday.
“The Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and tell the public.
“We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life,” they added. “No one can believe it.”
“No detail can be left unturned.”
Steve Chancellor, who has written two books on staged crime scenes and runs Second Look Training and Forensic Consulting, said that when someone dies by suicide, the gun only remains in the person’s hand 25% of the time.
“The mere fact that the gun was in the hand, I would pay attention to that,” he told The Post.
“Because many times when someone is trying to make it look like a suicide, they make that mistake and they put the gun in the hand.”
The police report also said “a white piece of paper that closely resembled a note” was found in plain view on the passenger’s seat, but its contents have not been disclosed.
