Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died on April 30 from a sudden, fast-spreading infection. In March, John “Mitch” Barnett, a 62-year-old whistleblower who filed a complaint against Boeing with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), was found dead from what the coroner said was a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.” The witness deaths come as Boeing is embroiled in federal investigations over a string of safety incidents and reports that the company is prioritizing speed over quality. As the company struggles to manage its latest crisis, 10 more whistleblowers are lined up to provide on-the-record statements about the inner workings of the company and possible degradations in its manufacturing standards and processes. “These men were heroes. So are all the whistleblowers. They loved the company and wanted to help the company do better,” Brian Knowles, a Charleston, South Carolina attorney who represented both Barnett and Dean, told the New York Post. “They didn’t speak out to be aggravating or for fame. They’re raising concerns because people’s lives are at stake.” Though the timing of the deaths is raising suspicions, Knowles says that he and others connected to the Boeing cases are hesitant to attribute them to a conspiracy. “I knew John Barnett for seven years and never saw anything that would indicate he would take his own life,” he said. “Then again, I’ve never dealt with someone who did. So maybe you don’t see the signs. I don’t know.” Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, said during U.S. Senate testimony last month that the company is engaged in a “criminal cover-up” in relation to the federal government investigation of a fuselage panel blowout on a Boeing 737 MAX in January. Pierson oversaw the MAX assembly line until the first of two crashes and told lawmakers of his warnings to senior management that the production line was unsafe. “The world is shocked to learn about Boeing’s current production quality issues,” said Pierson. “I’m not surprised because nothing changed after the two crashes. There was no accountability.” During the same hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour said the company actively hides safety risks associated with its planes. “Boeing hid problems, pushing pieces together with excessive force to make it appear that the gaps don’t exist,” Salehpour stated. “They are putting out defective airplanes.” He added, “Boeing manufacturing used unmeasured and unlimited amount of force to correct the misalignment. I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align.” As of May 6, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched a new investigation into Boeing amid a disclosure from the company that its inspection records on the 787 Dreamliner aircraft were falsified.In the span of just two months, two whistleblowers who testified against Boeing died under mysterious circumstances.
