The family of a former Boeing quality control manager who police say killed himself after lawyers questioned him for days about his whistleblowing on alleged jumbo jet defects are suing the aviation giant.
Boeing subjected John Barnett to a “campaign of harassment, abuse and intimidation intended to discourage, discredit and humiliate him until he would either give up or be discredited,” lawyers for the family wrote in a wrongful death lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in South Carolina.
Barnett, 62, shot himself March 9, 2024, in Charleston after answering questions from attorneys for several days in relation to a defamation lawsuit he had filed against Boeing. He lived in Louisiana.
“Boeing had threatened to break John, and break him it did,” the attorneys wrote in court papers on behalf of his family.
Boeing has not yet responded in court filings.
“We are saddened by John Barnett’s death and extend our condolences to his family,” the company said in a statement this week.
Barnett was a Boeing employee for 32 years, working as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists and became a whistleblower.
“John became concerned when he transferred to Boeing’s South Carolina plant in 2010 — quality issues, procedures that wasn’t being followed, short cuts that was trying to be taken,” his brother Rodney Barnett, told CBS Morning News in an exclusive interview in March 2024.
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Barnett said he once saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wires and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing’s 787 planes.
Barnett shared his concerns with his supervisors and others before leaving Boeing, but according to the lawsuit they responded by ignoring him and then harassing him.
Boeing intentionally gave Barnett inaccurate, poor job reviews and less desirable shifts, according to the lawsuit. Barnett’s family argues the company publicly blamed him for delays that angered his co-workers and prevented him from transferring to another plant.
Barnett eventually was diagnosed with PTSD and his mental condition deteriorated, his family said.
“Whether or not Boeing intended to drive John to his death or merely destroy his ability to function, it was absolutely foreseeable that PTSD and John’s unbearable depression, panic attacks, and anxiety, which would in turn lead to an elevated risk of suicide,” the lawsuit said. “Boeing may not have pulled the trigger, but Boeing’s conduct was the clear cause, and the clear foreseeable cause, of John’s death.”
Alaska Airlines blowout
A panel of experts in February 2024 criticized Boeing’s safety culture, raising the heat on the aircraft manufacturer following a Jan. 5 incident in which the door panel of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 plane made by the Boeing blew off mid-flight. The incident came after other safety issues had been linked to Boeing’s Max line of aircraft, heightening concerns about the jet’s safety.
In its report following the Alaska Airlines blowout, the Federal Aviation Administration said a panel of government and aviation industry experts had “found a lack of awareness of safety-related metrics at all levels” of Boeing, adding that “employees had difficulty distinguishing the differences among various measuring methods, their purpose and outcomes.”
“The failure of quality control at Boeing over the last decade is well known and well documented, as are the consequences of that failure, which include planes crashing and coming apart in the air,” lawyers state in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Barnett’s mother Vicky Stokes and two other family members.
The lawsuit doesn’t specify the amount of damages sought by Barnett’s family but asks for compensation for emotional distress and mental anguish, back pay, 10 years of lost future earnings as well as bonuses, health expenses and his lost life insurance benefits.
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If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
