Whistleblower John Barnett claimed Boeing managers spied on him before his alleged suicide
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett claimed the company’s management had been spying on him in the bombshell court case he was working on when he was mysteriously found dead.
The quality control engineer’s attorneys, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, released the complaint Wednesday out of transparency after Barnett was found dead in his pickup truck at a Charleston, South Carolina, hotel on March 9.
The lawsuit makes a number of bombshell claims about Boeing — currently under scrutiny after a series of quality control problems, including a door plug falling off mid-flight — charging they retaliated against Barnett when he tried to raise the alarm about defaults in their manufacturing process.
Barnett said he suffered numerous instances of retaliation after internally reporting the airplane giant’s failure to comply with Federal Aviation Authority safety standards.
The lawsuit said he was subjected to a “gaslighting campaign in which he was continually harassed, denigrated, humiliated, and treated with scorn and contempt by upper management.”
Another section of the lawsuit stated: “In June 2014, Barnett submitted a complaint to Corporate Ethics against [redacted] for violating procedures, ignoring process violations, pushing Barnett to ‘work in the grey areas,’ and having another manger spy on Barnett.
“Although Barnett’s complaint was substantiated by Corporate Ethics, no action was taken to address the complaints.”
Barnett retired in 2017 after more than 30 years of service with Boeing, which he said was 10 years earlier than he had planned due to the actions he claimed were taken against him.
“That’s the way it’s done there. There were always moles who would throw you under the bus to look good to the big bosses. They weren’t about team unity; you never know who you could trust,” a Boeing mid-level manager, who asked to remain anonymous over fear of losing their job, told The Post Wednesday.
The complaint — which redacted names of specific managers — also claimed during meetings Barnett’s senior manager had, on numerous occasions, announced to the team Barnett was responsible for the rest of the team having to “be away from their families” and work overtime due to his insistence on documenting procedure violations or equipment defects.
Managers complained Barnett used email to maintain a record of defects rather than “face to face” communication — even though it is required by FAA Standards and Regulations to document defects in writing, according to the complaint.
At one point Barnett put in an email in September 2014: “Leadership wants nothing in email so they maintain plausible deniability.”
Boeing’s response to Barnett’s filing is sealed and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
In a statement to WSCS the company said, “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.
“Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr. Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint.”
Attorneys for Boeing had filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but it was shot down by a judge in May 2022.
In 2019, two years after Barnett quit, the company also created a Speak Up program so employees could flag concerns about product quality and safety. However, an FAA report published February said it was not widely used, with employees preferring to speak to their managers instead.
Barnett’s lawsuit also claimed his name was number 1 of 49 listed in an email from upper management titled “Quality Managers to get rid of”.
As a result of the years of retaliation, Barnett’s attorneys said their client began experiencing chest pains, shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, which Barnett’s doctor attributed to the stress from Boeing.
Barnett ‘s attorneys argued that by being forced not to properly document defects and procedure errors, he was being forced to commit criminal felonies, so he had no choice but to leave the company.
“It is a criminal felony offense to not properly document the build record of an aircraft. By pressuring Barnett to not follow processes … Boeing was ordering Barnett to commit a felony offense.”
Barnett faced a repetitive and systemic pattern of being requested to “violate, circumvent, and ignore the law, and to place profits over safety and quality,” the complaint stated.
Barnett was seeking damages including backed pay, pay for the 10 years of early retirement, lost bonuses, lost health and life insurance benefits, medical expenses, loss of 401-K retirement and matching
benefits, money for emotional distress and mental anguish, compensatory damages and attorney’s fees.
The preliminary determination by the Charleston coroner’s office is that Barnett died of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound” but his attorneys have expressed skepticism over that ruling.
