Second of four Boeing whistleblowers dies aged 45: how did they both die?
A second Boeing whistleblower has died after a brief illness. The former quality auditor was fired after raising concerns about the 737 Max planes.
Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at a major Boeing contractor alleged that he was fired from his job at Spirit AeroSystems for warning about defects in the 737 Max airplane, died on Tuesday. The Seattle Times reported that his cause of sudden death was a brief illness from a “fast-spreading infection.”
The 45-year-old is the second Boeing whistleblower to die in two months. John Barnett, 62, was found dead in March from what appeared to the local corner to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Dean and Barnett are two of the four people that have come forward publically alleging the planemaker cut corners in assembly processes and knew about defective parts.
Who are the other two Boeing whistleblowers?
Boeing has been beleaguered with safety issues in recent months after a door flew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 mid-flight in January. That sparked an investigation by the FAA which said in March that “non-compliance issues” were discovered with Boeing’s manufacturing-process control as well as parts handling and storage.
That same month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice opened its own investigation into the American planemaker. Sources told Reuters last month that the DOJ said it will decide by late May whether Boeing violated an agreement that shielded it from criminal prosecution for two fatal 737 Max jets crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
In April, Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour and former Boeing engineer and senior manager Ed Pierson gave testimony in back-to-back Senate hearings.
What have the Boeing whistleblowers said?
Pierson became a whistleblower after the two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes. In 2018 he had become concerned about declining safety culture at the planemaker and began pushing for Boeing and regulators to look into the conditions at the manufacturer’s Renton plant reported NBC News.
Salehpour testified about Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, alleging that workers at the factory used excessive force to get sections of the fuselage to align. That he explained could compromise the carbon-composite material used for the plane’s frame leading to structural failure.
He explained that he had received physical threats, was sidelined and told to “shut up” after writing “many memos” to alert the higher-ups at Boeing of his concerns. Barnett said that he too faced retaliation from the company. His apparent suicide was committed just before his third day of deposition testimony in his lawsuit against his former employer.
Boeing says that retaliation is not tolerated against whistleblowers. A spokeswoman for Boeing recently told The Guardian that use of a company portal to flag safety issues has jumped 500% in the first quarter of this year.