John Mitchell Barnett (February 23, 1962 – March 9, 2024) was an American whistleblower who was known for his substantiated safety and quality reports to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about Boeing's production of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Barnett worked in quality control at Boeing for 32 years, serving for seven as a manager at Boeing South Carolina. Barnett was one of several employees to go public with The New York Times about malpractices beginning in 2019 at Boeing, and was featured in the 2022 Netflix documentary titled Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.
During his time in South Carolina, Barnett documented and reported several safety and quality issues to Boeing and the FAA. Boeing's own internal investigations corroborated his complaints about malfunctioning emergency oxygen systems and, in 2017, the FAA ordered remedial actions in regards to his complaints about non-conforming parts and metal shavings. Barnett subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under the FAA's Whistleblower Protection Program, AIR 21, which was closed by OSHA in favor of Boeing after a four-year investigation in 2021.
In 2021, Barnett and his attorneys appealed the decision and amended the original complaint, alleging that the company "undermined his career because he had raised safety concerns," which Boeing denied. As of March 12, 2024, his whistleblower case against Boeing was pending, to be continued under his estate.
In March 2024, after he failed to report for his third day of deposition, he was found dead of a gunshot wound. The Charleston County coroner described the wound as self-inflicted. A conspiracy theory that Boeing had assassinated him spread amongst the public. Video surveillance and other evidence examined by the Charleston Police Department showed that Barnett's cause of death was suicide by firearm, caused by "a period of serious personal distress" related to his participation in the whistleblower case.
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