The family of former Boeing quality control manager John Barnett has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company following his suicide in March. The 62-year-old Barnett was found dead in a hotel room in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 9. Reports indicate that he had been questioned by lawyers for several days before the incident. The lawsuit claims that Barnett was driven to suicide due to psychological pressure.
Barnett worked as a quality manager at Boeing for 32 years before retiring in 2017. After his retirement, he publicly accused Boeing of compromising safety standards to cut costs and claimed to have identified serious defects in some aircraft. His statements made him one of the most notable whistleblowers against the company.
In the lawsuit, Barnett’s family alleges that Boeing systematically intimidated, threatened, and humiliated him to silence his claims. The family’s attorneys stated, “Boeing threatened to destroy John, and in the end, they truly did.”
Boeing issued a brief statement this week, saying, “We are saddened by John Barnett’s passing and extend our condolences to his family.” The company did not comment on the lawsuit.
Barnett’s death has sparked public debate about how major corporations treat whistleblowers. Just months earlier, in May 2024, another whistleblower who had testified against Boeing—Joshua Dean, a former employee of the company’s key supplier Spirit AeroSystems—died from a sudden and rapidly spreading infection.
