Boeing whistleblower John Barnett found dead in US
www.bbc.com
Prior to his death, John Barnett was testifying against Boeing over concerns about standards.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

  • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    thanks for the info about kayak, very appreciated!!

    me same, i would never again willingly book a flight with a boeing airplane.

    in my mind that B. company got the status of a criminal organization >20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it. back then however the discussions were about computers overriding pilot control, not about a company intentionally risking lives.

    Now they seem to me to still refuse to fix the problems and instead rename planes so that one cannot avoid their deathtraps unless not at all flying with their aircrafts. so i choose to only book flights with aviation companies that do not have B. planes at all. I decided to in future rather use a car or boat instead, if only B. planes are available.

    i would not be surprised if the current “technical event” would be the actual same cause that “forced the nose down” over 20years ago, to me it sounds exactly like the same until now, it might just luckily have happened by chance high enough in the air so that the “nose forced down by computer” problem could somehow be solved with enough time where they had only seconds in that crash two decades ago.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it

      Erm. Are you talking about something OTHER than the changed 737-MAX design and the MCAS system? Because those two related crashes happened in late 2018 and early 2019 - 5-6 years ago. Got a link to the >20 years ago incident you are talking about?

      • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        what i meant was decades ago, not the “recent” crashes of 2018…

        i tried to find it but didn’t yet. there are way more plane crashes than i thought i would have to go through…

        looking at “new technology” introduced (as it was quite new) i stumbled over this article and remembered that the “three computers voting” (while the pilot may only take place in that voting - as a minority …) was part of the discussions back then (which is not written in that article however, but i found one piece, yay!):

        https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19950605&slug=2124705

        i feel like i could remember something wrong like it maybe was not a takeoff but possibly a go-around where the crash happened… not sure i won’t yet give up searching, but i have to stop for now…

        edit: i am not saying it was a 777, i just found a piece of my 20year old puzzle…

        • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          went through lots of plane accidents to find the one i think to remember, but had to stop as i do not want to increase fear of flying. however i stumbled about this one, Airbus A320 Air France flight 296 on 26th of June, 1988 which was sort of related as some “security” mechs seemed to have prevented crash prevention there and fired discussions. but this one was earlier and it was not boeing (and it looks like no one tried to cover things). however since it was during an airshow, not a commercial flight, i now figured out that the one i remember could have been a testflight, cargo flight or something else like a flight show as well… not sure if i “can” find it, the little i remember.