John “Mitch” Barnett, 62, who had raised concerns about Boeing's quality, was discovered dead from a gunshot wound on Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Charleston County Coroner’s Office stated that “his death appears to result from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Barnett underwent extensive questioning from Boeing lawyers on Thursday and from his own lawyers, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, on Friday during depositions.
Barnett, who used to live in Snohomish County, moved to Louisiana and was supposed to continue the deposition with his lawyers on Saturday. When he was not present, Turkewitz and Knowles called his hotel for a welfare check, and Barnett was found dead in his truck parked at the hotel.
Turkewitz and Knowles described Barnett as “a courageous, sincere man with the utmost integrity.”
The lawyers stated, “He deeply cared about his family, friends, Boeing, his colleagues, and the people who flew on Boeing aircraft. We seldom encountered someone with a more honest and upfront character.”
The lawyers also mentioned that Barnett “was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on.”
Turkewitz and Knowles expressed disbelief, stating, “We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it. We are all devastated. The Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and tell the public what they find out.”
Barnett’s niece Katelyn Gillespie remarked he was the fun uncle of the family.
Gillespie was very close to him. In Louisiana, he introduced Gillespie to dirt-track car racing and they spent every weekend tinkering with cars.
Gillespie mentioned he was “stressed and depressed” due to the recent flood of quality problems at Boeing and the strain of his case against the company for harassing him and forcing him from his job.
She expressed that Barnett was “the most selfless person” in private life and in his legal battle against Boeing, pursuing the company not for money but to help save lives.
“He fought a lot because of the issues with Boeing,” Gillespie said. “It took a major toll on him.” In a statement, the Charleston Police Department declined media interviews, emphasizing the importance of an evidence-led investigation.
In a statement, Boeing expressed sadness at Mr. Barnett’s passing and extended condolences to his family and friends.
A lengthy struggle with Boeing
John Mitchell Barnett spent 32 years at Boeing, starting as an electrician on the 747 jumbo jet program in Everett before advancing to quality inspector and then manager of a quality organization. He received excellent performance reviews in Everett.
In late 2010, he moved to Boeing’s 787 plant in North Charleston, where he experienced his first performance downgrade in early 2012.
He later shared how a group of supervisors sent to South Carolina from Boeing’s Missouri unit began to bother him for insisting on following quality procedures and refusing to approve defective work.
Barnett told managers about the quality deficiencies and the pressure applied to him, and he filed an internal ethics complaint, all without success.
In January 2017, he lodged a whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
After six years of worsening relations with management and active harassment, he said the stress had badly affected his health, and he described himself as “broken” by Boeing. He took early retirement in March 2017.
Barnett began speaking with The Seattle Times in April 2018, outlining a series of safety concerns on the 787 Dreamliner.
He described a widespread failure to keep track of parts on airplanes at Boeing’s South Carolina facilities. He spoke of thousands of defective parts that were lost in the system so that no one knew where they were.
He also reported discovering a large batch of defective oxygen bottles that if installed on 787s would not have provided a flow of oxygen in case of cabin depressurization.
And he raised a concern that certain titanium nuts being used to fasten the cabin flooring were shedding metal shavings into the electrical bays below, with the potential danger of triggering an electrical fire.
The Seattle Times decided to focus its investigation on the two specific safety issues, the defective oxygen bottles and the titanium shavings. Both were supported at least in part by the FAA.
A Freedom of Information Act request, which took the FAA nearly two-and-a-half years to fulfill, revealed that on the oxygen bottle issue, the FAA investigated and substantiated two out of four allegations.
The FAA found that Boeing had failed to keep records of and had not tracked the defective parts. It found that at least 53 “nonconforming parts are considered lost.”
Boeing insisted that it was just a crate of defective oxygen bottles that hadn’t been properly marked and that there were no defective bottles in service. The FAA backed Boeing’s assertion that there was no issue on any 787s in service.
Another Freedom of Information Act request on the titanium shavings issue was still not fully closed out three years later. In 2017, the FAA ordered inspections for the shavings on every 787 produced in both North Charleston and Everett.
In 2018, the FAA was still investigating the extent of the safety issue, and Boeing’s proposed corrective action was redacted from the documents received by The Seattle Times.
In all discussions with the Times, Barnett came across as a sincere person, with a genuine concern for the safety issues he had raised.
In late 2018, Barnett wrote an email to the Times summarizing what he believed had been achieved by his external complaints and the press inquiries.
“I know the FAA are pushing inside Boeing to assure no future planes are delivered with this (oxygen bottle) condition, so on that front, they are doing what needs to be done,” he wrote. “I received a note on Facebook the other day from a Boeing employee in Everett saying they are still working (the titanium shavings) issue, so that’s good for future deliveries.”
“Regarding the jets already delivered, they assessed it and took the right action. I can't ask for more on that front,” Barnett concluded. “I just hope it was a truthful and thorough evaluation, but, that's not for me to question.”
However, Barnett said he now considers it a significant problem “that Boeing treats their Quality Managers and other Quality personnel in this manner.”
“The fact that they punished me for following procedures, for documenting process violations, for insisting the airplanes are built correctly appears to be more worrying” than any one specific issue, he said.
In 2019, a month after the second crash of a 737 MAX, The New York Times published a story on the quality problems with the 787 in South Carolina, highlighting Barnett’s concerns.
Later that year, for Barnett’s exposure of potential safety problems on the Boeing 787, Ralph Nader awarded him the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which “recognizes individuals who take a public stance to advance truth and justice, at some personal risk.”
With that publicizing of his story, Barnett recently was interviewed by various media outlets as Boeing’s quality problems again became national news.
Meanwhile, his case claiming Boeing mistreated him for blowing the whistle on safety issues had slowly progressed. OSHA in 2021 found against him. He appealed that to the Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
With a trial date scheduled for June, Barnett had traveled to Charleston last week from his home in Louisiana to give depositions for that appeal. His family, as representatives of his estate, may have the option to continue it.
Barnett’s wife died in 2022. He is survived by his mother, three brothers, two stepsons from a previous marriage and many nieces, nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.
— Dominic Gates / The Seattle Times
_____
©2024 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
