A former Boeing employee who raised safety concerns related to the company’s aircraft production was found dead this week.
Former Boeing quality manager John Barnett, who The New York Times described as a “prominent” whistleblower, was in Charleston, South Carolina, this week for a deposition for a lawsuit that he filed against Boeing. The lawsuit alleges that the company retaliated against Barnett for raising his safety concerns with the U.S. Labor Department in 2017 under the AIR21 Whistleblower Protection Program.
The Charleston Police Department was dispatched on Saturday morning to conduct a welfare check at a Holiday Inn hotel and discovered Barnett, 62, sitting inside a vehicle with a “gunshot wound to the head,” police said.
Police said that it appeared as though the fatal gunshot wound was “self-inflicted,” but added that the detectives and the coroner were still…
