Boeing probably did kill the whistleblower

but indirectly, as Boeing would have subjected John Barnett to enormous psychological pressure and strain

John Barnett was a longtime Boeing quality control manager, retired in 2017. He had just endured a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case against Boeing. This week, he was found dead in a vehicle in a Holiday Inn in South Carolina. The Charleston County Coroner’s office released a statement indicating Barnett’s death appeared to come from “a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

Some of Twitter was not buying the official story:

…

The timing seems too convenient, as US Department of Labor hearings were to begin in June. Boeing has been seemingly evasive with investigators; the National Transportation Safety Board blasted Boeing in early March for styming information requests “specifically with respect to opening, closing and removal of the door and the team that does that work at the Renton facility.” Meanwhile, Boeing stock lurched downwards immediately coincident with the news of Barnett’s death.

Boeing stock hits its lowest point since October, 2023

But why would Boeing stick its neck out to kill John Barnett? The damage had already been done. John Barnett has spoken up, and out, for years. He even managed to preserve his testimony in the deposition he completed, and Boeing will now be deprived of any cross-examination. In January, an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 explosive decompression detached a fuselage plug door, resulting in a grounded fleet of Max 9s across airlines throughout the United States. Just this week, a Boeing 787 experienced a failure that prompted 50 passengers to seek treatment for injuries after the flight finally landed in Auckland, New Zealand. Regardless of Barnett’s testimony, Boeing cannot murder a series of airplane quality failures. How would a cold blooded murder of John Barnett really benefit Boeing now? The downsides of such an action would be significant, with unclear upside. Boeing can no longer intimidate workers or partners into silence, as the quality shortcomings have already been thrust into the global spotlight.

They would have exhausted their efforts already. Boeing, through its managers, other employees, and lawyers have almost certainly attempted to silence and intimidate John Barnett thoroughly, and in numerous ways across more than several instances. On April 20, 2019, the New York Times published a comprehensive report detailing malfunctions with Boeing craft dating as early as 2011 and complaints to the FAA from Boeing employees as early as 2014. In 2014, John Barnett received a reprimand and a downgrade for using emails to document errors and “express process violations” rather than do so face to face. Barnett described how managers ignored or downplayed serious issues in order to meet deadlines. Barnett declared to the NYTimes:

“As a quality manager at Boeing, you’re the last line of defense before a defect makes it out to the flying public. And I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy.”

Boeing must have placed tremendous pressure onto Barnett’s shoulders, and for over the better part of a decade. A Louisiana native, Barnett served at the Charleston, South Carolina Boeing plant. Boeing established a branch in South Carolina to exploit generous state subsidies, but also enjoy the state’s fierce anti-union posture. The NYTimes details the heady obstacles Boeing faced in its quest to recruit qualified employees while adhering to a mandate that unionized employees from the other branches not impact its fledgling union-free Charleston plant. Barnett suffered greatly bereft of the support of any union apparatus. He served his watch at what had to be Boeing’s most authoritarian and chaotic plant.

Mobbing presents itself as all-too-common phenomenon in the US workplace. Although Barnett alleged Boeing retaliated against him, many instances of mobbing do not trigger legal liability. Even so, an eventual threat of liability and damages would have posed a weak deterrent to Barnett’s superiors given their apparent willingness to cut corners and put lives in the air in great peril. Barnett was alone. And he did suffer PTSD and severe anxiety for years, persisting into his retirement. We cannot know everything that Barnett endured, but we do know that Boeing officials went as far as to tamper with security videos of repair work on the door plug that failed on the Alaska Airlines flight in January.

An adversarial relationship with your superiors can lead to severe stress, depression, and erupt into all sorts of more serious kinds of mental illness. And Barnett had to endure such a state of affairs for years. Humans have evolved as social creatures. In a tribal setting, loneliness and isolation could be the first steps before eventual ostracism and expulsion. That could mean death. Thus, as individuals, we remain extraordinarily sensitive to peer demands and carry with us a deep-seated need to fit with the group.

Now, add even an ounce of pressure tactics on top of this. John Barnett was a stalward critic of Boeing’s operations for years. He focused his concerns on the most pressing points, such whether passengers would have access to oxygen in case of sudden cabin decompression.

After finding some oxygen bottles were not discharging, Mr Barnett commissioned a test of 300 brand new oxygen systems. He claimed 75 of them – a quarter – did not deploy properly.

He claimed that Boeing had blocked him from looking into the matter further.

Barnett brought the matter before the FAA, which meekly deferred to Boeing. By this point, Barnett had to be firmly within the crosshairs of Boeing’s lawyers. US employment defense lawyers will cyber-stalk targets and log many hours assembling extensive dossiers in an attempt to discredit and character assassinate dissenters. At a target’s deposition, defense lawyers would first confront their target with the most promising products of their surveillance. And under US legal procedure, attorneys have wide latitude to attack the character and credibility of a witness, and Barnett was a complainant no less, in avenues that otherwise might not be relevant or admissible. At the deposition they would have locked him in through questioning, and also given him a taste of what he would have to face on cross-examination in court.

We do know that Barnett died soon after his deposition, perhaps hours after. For him, his ordeal had lasted for years, his employment and the legal action bridging over a decade. Boeing had a lot at stake, and its inconceivable that they would not have brought all their resources to bear to apply the maximum amount of pscyhological and legal pressure they could within the bounds of the law. And the law allows companies immense latitude, and privacy protections, especially on the internet, remain porous and immature.

I very much doubt anyone acting on behalf of Boeing pulled the trigger that killed John Barnett. It would have been unnecessary. Boeing had years to attack and break Barnett down psychologically. Anyone who has served at a job and done their level best knows how much it can hurt just to have their earnest efforts dismissed or their honest contributions undervalued. John Barnett experienced disillusion and pain orders of magnitude worse than that. He advocated for the basic safety of passengers, something that was very much within the long-term interest of even Boeing’s shareholders, and faced opposition at every step. In a reasonably sane and healthy work environment, his efforts would have been lauded. Instead, Boeing condemned him for showing up day in and day out and performing his duties faithfully.

I believe John Barnett may well have pulled the trigger that day. But yes, Boeing most certainly did kill him. John Barnett died in service to his country, and indeed the world, assuring that everyday Americans, as well as anyone who flew on a Boeing aircraft across the world, would do so within the safest conditions manufacturing and production could possibly guarantee. The pressure of a toxic and unhealthy workplace and management kills many each and every year. But the cause of death often reads as little more than ‘suicide’ or ‘mental illness.’ The work that John Barnett performed was critical to a safe, secure, and high-trust society. But today, we simply allow companies to run roughshod over their workers. And we have inadequate ways to measure the full impact and negative externalities of toxic and abusive management. However, occasionally we do catch a glimpse of full extent of the damage.

John Barnett, you will be missed.