Boeing whistleblower John Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a Coke and ‘didn’t seem upset at all’ the night before his alleged suicide in South Carolina, according to sources.
Barnett, 62, was found with a ‘self-inflicted’ gunshot wound in Charleston, where he had been in the middle of depositions in a bomb trial related to the production of the 787 Dreamliner plane.
Staff at the Holiday Inn where Barnett was found dead revealed the former quality manager seemed fine the night before his ‘suicide’ as questions arose about where he took his own life.
Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a Coke, scrolled on his phone and seemed fine on the evening of March 8, the unnamed hotel employee said. New York Post.
His lawyer previously questioned the coroner’s conclusions that the gunshot wound was ‘self-inflicted’ and said Barnett was in good spirits between his statements.
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a Coke and ‘didn’t seem upset at all’ the night before his alleged suicide in South Carolina, sources say
Barnett was found dead inside his pickup truck Saturday in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in Charleston, pictured above
Barnett was found with a ‘self-inflicted’ gunshot wound in Charleston, where he had been in the middle of depositions in a bomb trial related to the production of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Pictured: Boeing Distribution Services Inc. headquarters in Hialeah, Florida
‘I didn’t think about him at all until I heard the news the next day. He didn’t seem upset at all,’ said the employee.
A police report obtained by DailyMail.com reveals that Barnett extended his stay at the Holiday Inn two days before his suspected suicide and had been set to check out the day before the alarm was raised.
The report describes a friend of Barnett’s contacting the hotel and requesting a welfare check at 10 a.m. on March 9, when employees knocked on the door of his hotel room without an answer.
A staff member then searched his orange Dodge Ram in the hotel parking lot and discovered Barnett dead in the driver’s seat with a ‘silver gun’ in his right hand.
Barnett had his ‘right index finger back on the trigger’ and suffered a ‘gunshot wound near his right temple’, according to the Charleston Police Department.
The report added that there was a “white piece of paper that looked very much like a note” lying on the passenger seat.
The contents of the memo have not yet been disclosed.
In January, Barnett explained why he believed both models were ticking bombs, as both incidents remain under investigation
Barnett said he had issues with how Boeing was handling its production of its 737s and 787s in particular, days after a door stopper blew out on a 737 blew out at 16,000 feet
A member of staff at the hotel told investigators he heard a “pop” around 10 p.m. 9:30 a.m. when he was working on the exterior of the hotel, with Barnett’s truck discovered at the back of the property.
Surveillance footage also shows Barnett leaving the hotel on the morning of March 8, although the alarm wasn’t raised until 24 hours later.
In a statement issued after DailyMail.com published the contents of the incident report on Tuesday, Barnett’s lawyers, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, argued that there had been ‘no indication’ that the former Boeing employee would take his own life.
The statement read in part: ‘John was in the middle of a settlement in his whistleblower retaliation case, which was finally nearing completion.
‘He was in very good spirits and is really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We saw no signs that he wanted to take his own life. Nobody can believe it.
‘We are all devastated. We need more information about what happened to John. Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and let the public know what they find. No detail can remain unchanged.’
Boeing’s assembly plant in North Charleston – where the deceased worked for decades – is pictured
The Charleston Police Department said the coroner’s report showed Barnett’s death appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but detectives are still investigating the formal cause of death
Barnett’s lawyer Knowles told the BBC that Barnett had been in the middle of a settlement in a whistleblower trial in Charleston related to the production of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
On the third day of his deposition, he was to be cross-examined by his own lawyers, but did not appear.
The suit alleged that vacuum workers knowingly fitted ‘substandard’ parts to Boeing 787s and that brass swept errors under the carpet to save money.
The FAA has since revealed that the company failed a whopping 33 out of 89 audits during an investigation into its 737 Max production.
In January, Barnett appeared on TMZ to give his take on a technical glitch that saw a door fly off its hinges on a 737 — a model he said had been affected by recent shifts in strategy along with the 787.
His warning would prove prophetic when a 787 experienced a ‘technical incident’ in mid-air, injuring 50 passengers.
In January, Barnett explained why he believed both models were ticking bombs, as both incidents remain under investigation.
“This is not a 737 problem — it’s a Boeing problem,” he said after being asked if he believed the 737 was safe to fly after the door incident and a subsequent FAA inspection.
“I know the FAA is going in and doing due diligence and inspections to make sure the door latch on the 737 is installed properly and the fasteners are stored properly,” he said, citing the parts likely to have played a role in the incident .
‘But my concern is, ‘What is the rest of the plane? How is the condition of the rest of the plane?”
He went on to give a reason for this concern — one that he said led him to file a lawsuit against the airline
“Back in 2012, Boeing started removing inspection operations from their job,” he told TMZ’s Charles Latibeaudiere and Harvey Levin, recalling his time as a quality inspector at Boeing’s South Carolina plant, which mainly made 787s.
“So that left the mechanics to buy their own work,” he explained.
Barnett went on to charge that the incident involving the door was indicative of something bigger — and something alleged in his lawsuit: Boeing turned a blind eye to safety problems to boost their bottom line.
“What we’re seeing with the door plug blowout is what I’ve seen with the rest of the aircraft in terms of tasks not being done properly, inspection steps being removed, problems being ignored,” he said, months before his sudden death .
‘My concern is with the 737 and 787 because these programs have really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and not value added.
‘The two programs have really made a big effort to remove quality from the process.’