A former Boeing manager who raised safety questions about the American aircraft maker has been found dead outside a hotel in South Carolina, according to local authorities.
The body of John Barnett, 62, was found last Saturday in a car outside a Holiday Inn, suffering from what the Charleston County Coroner’s Office said appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Louisiana resident was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said detectives were waiting for a formal determination of the cause of death and “any additional findings that might shed further light on the circumstances surrounding” the end of Barnett’s life. Police noted “the global attention this case has garnered.”
Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee and worked as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists.
“John was deeply concerned about the safety of the aircraft and flying public, and had identified some serious defects that he felt were not adequately addressed,” Barnett’s brother, Rodney, said in a family statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“He said that Boeing had a culture of concealment and was putting profits over safety.”