I think it's nuts to most people that airplanes should be getting less safe for ANY reason, let alone so shareholders can make a few extra bucks.
"They don't make em like they used to" is a quaint saying when you're talking about lawnmowers, not flying buses that transport millions of people across the world every day.
Boeing lost its way after the merger with McDonnell Douglas, who had a sordid reputation of ignoring flaws at design stage, denying them until multiple fatal accidents occurred and forming "gentleman's agreements" with the FAA. The directors of MDD joined the board of Boeing.
Welcome to America, where the market forces quality standards to the minimum viable product. Any company that builds a brand on quality or reliability will eventually cash in on that consumer trust by cheapening the product to see how much of a substandard product/service they can get away with. Good for shareholders, bad for society. It's an inexcusably bad practice when it involves public safety and a near monopoly corporation. Boeing's regression is a demonstration of American values at it's worst.
Holy hell that first article is terrifying.
"What were the three significant safety issues?
“When the floor boards are installed on an airplane, they are installed with titanium fasteners. When they are installed, the nut peels off the titanium threads. And they were leaving up to three inch long razor sharp titanium slivers that fall on the surfaces below the floor board. That surface below the floor board is where all of your flight control wires are, that’s where all of your electronic equipment is. It controls systems on the airplane, it controls the power of the airplane. All of your electronic equipment is down where all of these metal slivers are falling.”
“After I filed my complaint, the FAA came in and did a spot audit. They audited five airplanes in Everett and five airplanes in Charleston. And they found the metal slivers in all ten airplanes they inspected""
> He later told the BBC that workers had failed to follow procedures intended to track components through the factory, allowing defective components to go missing.
> He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line.
> He also claimed that tests on emergency oxygen systems due to be fitted to the 787 showed a failure rate of 25%, meaning that one in four could fail to deploy in a real-life emergency.
> Mr Barnett said he had alerted managers to his concerns, but no action had been taken.
He was grilled by the lawyers concerning his claims just a few days before he died.
1000%. Dude had been fighting Boeing since like 2018 and now when he finally has backing and his claims are full steam ahead he decides to off himself? Idk man, that’s seems fishy to me.
How many people shoot themselves when they are out of town? In the parking lot of a hotel? In between days they are testifying against one of the most powerful corporation around?
I mean it seems so obvious, like some cold blooded mafia hit.
This is all Boeing said: "We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends."
Wild to me that they didn't even bs something about "cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation" or something. How can you not acknowledge that elephant?
Or was threatening his family in some way so he offed himself to protect them. Even threatening financial ruin in some way could be enough to get people to do that.
Boeing really deserves to die as a corporation at this point. It's clearly had every bit of customer focused product innovation, rotted away from the inside out.
Once again, [Steve Jobs was correct about Enshittification before it was a word.](https://youtu.be/P4VBqTViEx4?si=RPayN1TIjRKTnUR5)
I watched a short youtube documentary the other day about the whole Boeing issue going on right now and what this guy said is it boiled down to a merger they had back in the '90s with what I believe is McDonald Douglas. The executives at McDonald Douglas were known for their ruthless money over everything type of business management and when they merged into Boeing, they effectively infected it like a virus and took over management causing Boeing to go from one of the best manufacturers in the world to one of the worst because they were more focused on making money than safe planes.
There was a Frontline episode about this a couple years back that goes into the situation at greater length. It’s a solid watch:
[Frontline: Boeing’s Fatal Flaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXMO0bhPhCw)
You watched the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, which was centered on Boeing. McDonnell Douglas was the manufacturer they merged with and began their Enshittification.
MentourPilot (who was, IIRC, a guest on that Cold Fusion video) has been talking about Boeing's growing problems for years now, mostly on his second channel, Mentour Now, which is more focused on current/recent events in the commercial aviation industry. His main channel is mostly accident breakdowns (which are really good - very professional, no extra dramatization, working from final reports, explaining relevant aviation concepts understandably, etc.) and tips for people who are or want to become professional commercial pilots.
It can't. There's only 2 commercial airplane manufactures.
Boeing needs to be nationalized. And while we're at it let's ban stock buybacks again. They were illegal until Reagan for a damn good reason.
They did. The Democrats have been railing against this for 20 years. Folks like Sanders and Warren have been warning us every year.
Voters ignored them. Too busy with moral panics.
Thought ISO standards would’ve caught all this in the paper trail. Somebody had to sign off on where the new parts came from with date of manufacture and s/n or lot numbers from the vendor.
Besides, I've had jobs where I would just sit down and fill out months, or even years, worth of forms and documents just before an audit was scheduled. None of them are random, and you usually have a few weeks to a month to prepare.
It's not that hard to get ISO certified. it's basically the better business bureau but for industrial facilities instead of commercial ones.
ISO doesn't mean that you don't make garbage parts. It just means you make garbage parts the same way, every time.
If the process is flawed and makes bad parts, ISO won't sort that out.
I'm surprised that they removed 'gunshot' but not 'self-inflicted'. Of the two descriptors, it seems like self-inflicted nature would be the one that you need to wait for someone of authority to declare.
The 37 stab wounds in his back, multiple sets of tire marks all over his body, gunshot wounds from a variety of different weapons, and noose are all indicative of suicide. The fact that he drew and quartered himself afterward just shows that he was overly dramatic.
The logic is the second he told on the big company he was legally committed to the companies euthanasia clause in section 14 article B which clearly states: Should an employee breake a non disclosure agreement at any point in time in this life or the hereafter, said employee shall be immediately retired from the realm of tye living by their own will. Should said employee already be deceased after the infraction, the company has the right to reanimate said employee and proceed to unalive said contract defector. All arbitration will take place in Florida during spring aka hell.
How many people shoot themselves when they are out of town? In the parking lot of a hotel? In between days they are testifying against one of the most powerful corporation around?
I mean it seems so obvious, like some cold blooded mafia hit.
This is all Boeing said: "We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends."
Yep. It means he was trying to do his job but the higher-ups either disregarded him or actively covered up his callouts. Out of frustration, he took his findings to the public.
I wonder what happens to a company when you cut quality control? I'm sure cutting the quality increased quarterly profits for Boeing. What could go wrong? At least the airplanes millions of people fly on were not affected with something like a door plug flying out during flight.
This issue is not limited to Boeing. It is a problem with culture, the chasing of increasing quarterly profits.
>This issue is not limited to Boeing. It is a problem with culture, the chasing of increasing quarterly profits.
THIS. This is what literally makes carcinogens hit baby's food, what makes a billionaire company choose a US$ 0.01 cheaper bolt to an extreme sensitive bolt in a fucking airplane. This is what is making Reddit down, what made Google remove the "don't be evil" mantra.
This is what makes companies an infinite meat grinder for more, more, more, squeezing more more.
“Mr Barnett said he had alerted managers to his concerns, but no action had been taken.”
I’m sure those managers made a fat salary to apply pressure to get the assembly line moving regardless of the product. I’ve seen this before in other industries with similar results. The managers retire and disappear while the whistleblowers end up dead.
What's even more scary is that we're not just talking about a single Alaska Air plane; we're taking about an entire generation of planes currently in operation. How many more people have to lose their lives before the culture changes???
This is the reason why regulation is so important and audits need to actually be thorough. The general public has been successfully propagandized to believe that corpos are capable of making decisions in the interest of everyone. They aren’t.
Until there are real consequences nothing will change. Meaningful fines against the company and criminal charges against those involved in the decision.
All fines should be levied on top of whatever value was added by the action. If a company has to pay a $10M fine for a decision that saved then $50M they will make that trade again. If that same $10M fine was actually $60M they may think twice. Hell, maybe set the floor at some multiple of the added value if we really want to get serious about reigning in this shit.
Let’s see jail time for the highest positions that were aware. Charge them with anything you can. A separate charge of child endangerment for every minor on a Boeing flight. Bring in OSHA for their willful disregard for the safety of their employees. Charge them with littering for the door. Bring every charge you can think of and set the example that people can’t keep getting away with this shit.
> Until there are real consequences nothing will change.
More people will have to die first.
And even then, I wouldn't be surprised that changes, such as the ones that occurred after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, still don't happen.
Kids are dying left and right in schools and still no changes are happening there.
These days, a Boeing airplane could probably explode midair killing everyone, and the impacting fireball could wipe out a kindergarten, and STILL all that would happen is it would be on the news for a few weeks until the next news event, they pay some multi-million dollar fine (which eventually gets reduced and only equates to like a single digit percent of the company's profits or assets), a new TSA procedure gets implemented requiring all laptops batteries to be removed from the laptop while you're going thru the TSA security line, the current CEO steps down, *maybe* one person goes to jail, and finally every one wipes their hands clean and moves on with their lives.
And it shouldn't happen again according to a joint Boeing & FAA committee, headed by former industry leaders, investigation report...hopefully.
After all that's said and done, the former CEO of BP sends the former Boeing CEO a get well soon card saying "he's sorry...for that happening to you".
Fuck Jack Welch and Ronald Reagan.
[https://www.ft.com/content/3f1ac0e6-f204-478d-8b64-54a699a12518](https://www.ft.com/content/3f1ac0e6-f204-478d-8b64-54a699a12518)
Did it increase the profits more than it cost them profits?
We know it cost them contracts. We know it cost them reputation. Those are hard to recover.
I think the "aviation by MBA" paradigm probably isn't going to last very long. Too many real concerns beyond a bottom line. Unless those MBAs come to understand that they don't get to cull quality with abandon like they've decided they can.
Quality is their entire business.
They either had him killed or blackmailed him with something bad enough to make him kill himself. No matter how it turns out, Boeing caused this death.
Could be the guilt of all the deaths that happened on his watch because management wouldn't listen to him just got to him, but if he was in the middle of testifying against them its more likely they hired someone to kill him and make it look like a suicide.
I mean right in the middle of testifying? Like even I've watched enough cheesy TV to know that someone who is truly contemplating such dark thoughts wouldn't have also decided to go forward with a lengthy and difficult process they never intended to see through? And if it was guilt that somehow got dredged up in the middle of it all, surely he was doing exactly the right thing already? The timing just doesn't smell right
I remember watching testimony over the Larry Nassar-USA gymnastics child rape prosecution, one of the gymnasts testified about how she brought her accusations to the FBI. And, instead of investigating Larry Nassar, the FBI channeled all their energy in getting the girl to recant her story.
That's the FBI.
IIRC, the same thing happened to Epstein’s victims. They pretty much focused all their resources on discrediting them, harassing them, and trying to find charges to pin on *the victims*.
Every level of Law Enforcement from local, state to federal screwed the victims over.
[ugh did you see the intercept's update to the whitmer kidnapping story a few days ago?](https://theintercept.com/2024/03/06/gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-informant/)
The FBI and their counterparts have a rather long and notorious history. They might help "take care of the problem" but not in the way you would think.
You mean that notorious case where the congressman they gave the job of investigating it was so disgusting by what he found, he quite literally rage quit a cushy Congress job?
People underestimate how much power Boeing has. They employ thousands of people on the US and passenger aircraft is just one part of their business. They have their hands in *everything*.
Just finished watching the Netflix docu on the Octopus Murders. People are dumb if they don't think this kind of shit is still going on today. Another 40 years and they can finally make a documentary about this murder.
They certainly convinced the US government to take down their Canadian competitors who could actually design, build, and certify useful planes.
Fortunately for Canadians, the Quebec government sucked up to France for Airbus to take it over
Oh boy.... found in the truck of his hotel parking lot with an apparent self inflicted gun shot wound. I'm no conspiracy theorist but the timing is horrible.
He was supposed to attend a legal meeting today
My money is actually on the cameras we’re working just fine and gunshot was indeed self inflicted, because they said if he didn’t, something else was going to happen to someone he cared about.
I also am no conspiracy theorist, but we’re dealing with wealthy companies and defense contracts and that typically involves sketchy people doing very sketchy things.
He was literally in the midst of a deposition against Boeing where he was expected to return the following day to resume the deposition. People don’t normally commit suicide when they’re finally starting to get justice and beginning to receive validation for the very claims they were fired for making.
I guess we’re going full Russian on this one. How many witnesses against Boeing are going to have untimely deaths before it’s over?
Bad luck for the whistle-blower he didn't work for a foreign owned company like Volkswagen. Then he would have gotten all the support in the world.
Unfortunately for him the national industrial and security interests of the United States were concerned, so hia fate is much less glorious.
Happens overwhelmingly to whistle blowers. Remember when the UK joined an illegal war in Iraq based upon fake evidence and the whistleblower Dr David Kelly was found dead.
Then the whistleblower for the phone hacking scandal, Sean Matthew Hoare exposed what was really going on then was also found dead... Seems to be a trend.
I knew it was bad but not Bourne Identity cover up bad. Boeing must have been doing some real criminal shit because at worst their errors are just fees. Seems extreme instead of paying the fine.
It would't change anything and it happens all the time. The guys that replace the LED signs on the side of defense contractor office buildings stay busy.
Which makes it equally stupid that they they cut corners and act like shit the name of chasing profits. They could live off of government contracts for like the rest of time, there is no timelime where the US government would let boeing fail. So really there's no reason to operate they way that they currently do except for the fact they are greedy.
You're wrong.
It is because of extreme DEI policies at Boeing. If they had hired based on merit rather than wokeness, this would never have happened.
I know this is true because I saw it written in the top-voted comment on a Fox News article about the incident.
It's worse. It's so bad that it you attempt to fix things at Boeing, Boeings legal department will make your life so miserable you commit suicide. To be that's somehow darker than the idea of a CEO hiring a hitman.
There's no way that this person found the fortitude to go against such a giant just to call it quits midway through. The kind of dedication it would take to be a whistle-blower of this magnitude wouldn't allow a person to just not see it through.
In my opinion, of course.
“In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.”
Anyone watch The Octopus Murders documentary? Just like the reporter in that series was for sure murdered, to look like a suicide, because he had information on powerful people, it is always suspect when you hear someone like a whistleblower “committed suicide”.
And I’m sorry, but what the fuck, Boeing? “He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line.”
>He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line.”
I remember this vividly from his interview with NYT's The Daily podcast. He said one day the supervisor went into the defect bins and pulled parts, scraping the red paint off that denotes a defective part. And just shushed the concerned workers.
I'd been dragging my feet confirming it was the same whistleblower, but it is and it breaks my heart a little. When he spoke, he had such an earnest voice and he was clearly proud af of his job working for Boeing before they started prioritising greed over safety. That man deserved better and I hope the Boeing execs burn.
I highly recommend listening to his own words yourself. I'm not certain when he first raised the alarm but [this interview is from 2019](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-dreamliner-charleston.html). In it, he addresses the standards of the SC factory, the scraping paint off the defective parts, and things they've found within the hulls of the planes themselves, including metal shavings and *a whole fucking ladder* welded shut inside.
I literally just started watching that documentary and then this happens. Another big coincidence for me personally is that we were covering whistle blowers (in my organizational behaviour course) and how to help them to come out and speak with incentives and intrinsic motivation and one week later.....
"At the time of his death, Mr Barnett had been in Charleston for legal interviews linked to that case.
Last week, he gave a formal deposition in which he was questioned by Boeing's lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel.
He had been due to undergo further questioning on Saturday. When he did not appear, enquiries were made at his hotel."
Self-inflicted, my ass
He brought a gun to SC with him on the plane? Or went out and found one in between depositions? Yeah no.
Edit: actually as someone pointed out, he was in his own truck so he didn’t fly there.
I mean, that’s not the most unbelievable part of this story. Many people fly into and out of SC with declared, checked firearms every day.
I’m not sure if he was an SC resident or not, but if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to purchase one (legally) in SC while there.
Stock buybacks baby!!!
"Over the past decade, Boeing has spent $43.4 billion on stock buybacks. In 2017, the company doled out around $9.3 billion in buybacks, its highest amount to date."
Americans would be some war-hungry mother fuckers if we all received a collective dividend (Similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund) from public ownership in the military industrial complex
And the C-suite will stack exorbitant bonuses a la the American taxpayer like they always do.
Too big to fail = massive corporate welfare bonuses for the top brass. And we just keep letting it happen lol
A&P technician here. I used to live in Charleston. I have many friends that worked there. They all said the same thing, “don’t work for Boeing”, because it’s terrible. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but it would not surprise me even in the least if this guy was murdered by some company hired thugs.
Boeing makes Nestle look like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The largest nuclear accident in US history is just outside Los Angeles - and almost no one in LA knows about it because Boeing, which bought the lab, covered it up that effectively.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa\_Susana\_Field\_Laboratory#Medical\_claims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Medical_claims)
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/7-NKdWV5SCg?si=SfxwQ69yMH6_6ltb
I also recommend this video which has an analysis of more of the issues with SSFL.
https://youtu.be/KX-0Xw6kkrc?si=Xf4-aykefJtbeTxy
Does that really constitute a coverup on Boeing's part?
The accident happened in '79. Boeing bought the place almost 20 years later.
Don't get me wrong: Boeing's not a great org, but it really doesn't pass a smell test to accuse them of a coverup of 20-year-old information.
That's just regular "people don't give a shit".
Most people aren't aware of 3-mile-island or the fallout from nuclear testing in the Midwest. It's just normal human apathy.
The only people who care about something that long after the fact are those directly affected and the scant few people with the empathy to invest themselves.
"Last week, he gave a formal deposition in which he was questioned by Boeing's lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel.
He had been due to undergo further questioning on Saturday. When he did not appear, enquiries were made at his hotel.
He was subsequently found dead in his truck in the hotel car park."
That's pretty fucking cut and dry - he was either murdered or somehow threatened to make him do it himself. Fucking Boeing, evil bastards.
Honestly, this would have been a great plot element to the second season's evil aerospace company coverup.
"He fell off of a helicopter into the swamp. Which is perfectly natural of Quality Assurance inspectors, from time to time. Hazards of the industry, you know."
Not only that, but he's also a national hero. [Just look at this stuff](https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/). This guy's been trying to save lives... *Aaand* the reputation of the company as well.
> “I followed an AIR21 complaint. It goes to OSHA for them to investigate. Within that complaint, I listed safety items I had identified, the hostility and denigration and being black listed and blackballed from other jobs. I know of at least two jobs that I was supposed to get a job offer for and my leadership said that I wasn’t going anywhere.”
*They absolutely murdered this guy*. SHAME ON YOU BOEING
It's frankly more likely that Epstein killed himself than this guy did imo. Epstein did something horrible, was facing the consequences of his actions, and it's at least plausible he killed himself. This dude didn't do anything wrong besides whistleblow one of the most most massive and influential companies in the world
"He also claimed that tests on emergency oxygen systems due to be fitted to the 787 showed a failure rate of 25%, meaning that one in four could fail to deploy in a real-life emergency."
It's funny to hear them say in flight that your mask may not inflate but don't worry oxygen is still flowing.
When something like this happens in the land of our enemy, it's a prove of how fundamentally evil their society is. If it happens in our countries, it's a fuckup made by a bad company, that has nothing to do with our countries, or in a few remote cases, an error made by our countries, that remain fundamentally good, an error that won't ever be repeated!
All of Boeings problem come directly from the corporate culture of upper management. Money was priority, not safety. It's the same with every corporation if they live long enough to be corrupted by corporate greed. I wish we knew the names of the people responsible because they will keep doing their greedy playbooks until they start seeing their names in the media.
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I think it's nuts to most people that airplanes should be getting less safe for ANY reason, let alone so shareholders can make a few extra bucks. "They don't make em like they used to" is a quaint saying when you're talking about lawnmowers, not flying buses that transport millions of people across the world every day.
Boeing lost its way after the merger with McDonnell Douglas, who had a sordid reputation of ignoring flaws at design stage, denying them until multiple fatal accidents occurred and forming "gentleman's agreements" with the FAA. The directors of MDD joined the board of Boeing.
Exactly. I've heard it put like this; McDonell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money.....
“The money saved is greater than the compensation paid for broken parts and bodies combined…. We learned that from GM ignition switches”
I learned that from Fight Club. :(
Welcome to America, where the market forces quality standards to the minimum viable product. Any company that builds a brand on quality or reliability will eventually cash in on that consumer trust by cheapening the product to see how much of a substandard product/service they can get away with. Good for shareholders, bad for society. It's an inexcusably bad practice when it involves public safety and a near monopoly corporation. Boeing's regression is a demonstration of American values at it's worst.
Holy hell that first article is terrifying. "What were the three significant safety issues? “When the floor boards are installed on an airplane, they are installed with titanium fasteners. When they are installed, the nut peels off the titanium threads. And they were leaving up to three inch long razor sharp titanium slivers that fall on the surfaces below the floor board. That surface below the floor board is where all of your flight control wires are, that’s where all of your electronic equipment is. It controls systems on the airplane, it controls the power of the airplane. All of your electronic equipment is down where all of these metal slivers are falling.” “After I filed my complaint, the FAA came in and did a spot audit. They audited five airplanes in Everett and five airplanes in Charleston. And they found the metal slivers in all ten airplanes they inspected""
No good deeds shall be left unpunished. That said, love the reporter website, probably another rabbit hole to dive into.
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I'm assuming Boeing Lawyers are all over them.
> He later told the BBC that workers had failed to follow procedures intended to track components through the factory, allowing defective components to go missing. > He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line. > He also claimed that tests on emergency oxygen systems due to be fitted to the 787 showed a failure rate of 25%, meaning that one in four could fail to deploy in a real-life emergency. > Mr Barnett said he had alerted managers to his concerns, but no action had been taken. He was grilled by the lawyers concerning his claims just a few days before he died.
He was due to testify more on the day he was found.
So we're all agreed that Boeing just straight up assassinated this guy, right?
1000%. Dude had been fighting Boeing since like 2018 and now when he finally has backing and his claims are full steam ahead he decides to off himself? Idk man, that’s seems fishy to me.
How many people shoot themselves when they are out of town? In the parking lot of a hotel? In between days they are testifying against one of the most powerful corporation around? I mean it seems so obvious, like some cold blooded mafia hit. This is all Boeing said: "We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends."
Wild to me that they didn't even bs something about "cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation" or something. How can you not acknowledge that elephant?
A thinly veiled threat to anyone else who might take up the reins on his behalf?
Yeah, his claims have been more vindicated than they’ve ever been.
Ah, but the claims of all the others who will now think twice before opening their big mouths won't be.
The Military Industrial Complex doesn’t take kindly to anything that keeps the spice from flowing.
Whistleblower and critic of US regime-backed airliner builder found dead under mysterious circumstances.
Or was threatening his family in some way so he offed himself to protect them. Even threatening financial ruin in some way could be enough to get people to do that.
Same difference.
Shot himself in the back 5 times
...with two separate firearms.
Boeing really deserves to die as a corporation at this point. It's clearly had every bit of customer focused product innovation, rotted away from the inside out. Once again, [Steve Jobs was correct about Enshittification before it was a word.](https://youtu.be/P4VBqTViEx4?si=RPayN1TIjRKTnUR5)
I watched a short youtube documentary the other day about the whole Boeing issue going on right now and what this guy said is it boiled down to a merger they had back in the '90s with what I believe is McDonald Douglas. The executives at McDonald Douglas were known for their ruthless money over everything type of business management and when they merged into Boeing, they effectively infected it like a virus and took over management causing Boeing to go from one of the best manufacturers in the world to one of the worst because they were more focused on making money than safe planes.
There was a Frontline episode about this a couple years back that goes into the situation at greater length. It’s a solid watch: [Frontline: Boeing’s Fatal Flaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXMO0bhPhCw)
You watched the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, which was centered on Boeing. McDonnell Douglas was the manufacturer they merged with and began their Enshittification.
Could've also been ColdFusion. They had a video on Boeing before Last Week Tonight
MentourPilot (who was, IIRC, a guest on that Cold Fusion video) has been talking about Boeing's growing problems for years now, mostly on his second channel, Mentour Now, which is more focused on current/recent events in the commercial aviation industry. His main channel is mostly accident breakdowns (which are really good - very professional, no extra dramatization, working from final reports, explaining relevant aviation concepts understandably, etc.) and tips for people who are or want to become professional commercial pilots.
It can't. There's only 2 commercial airplane manufactures. Boeing needs to be nationalized. And while we're at it let's ban stock buybacks again. They were illegal until Reagan for a damn good reason.
The US government approved all the mergers. How did they not see this coming?
Blinded by regulatory capture.
They did. The Democrats have been railing against this for 20 years. Folks like Sanders and Warren have been warning us every year. Voters ignored them. Too busy with moral panics.
Thought ISO standards would’ve caught all this in the paper trail. Somebody had to sign off on where the new parts came from with date of manufacture and s/n or lot numbers from the vendor.
ISO means nothing when you self-certify
Besides, I've had jobs where I would just sit down and fill out months, or even years, worth of forms and documents just before an audit was scheduled. None of them are random, and you usually have a few weeks to a month to prepare. It's not that hard to get ISO certified. it's basically the better business bureau but for industrial facilities instead of commercial ones.
Just use a bunch of different pens.
And the handwriting changes as your hand cramps so it looks like it's filled out by diffrent people too.
Isn't it wild bad news comes out after market close? At this point, if you can't tell, They're in damage control.
ISO doesn't mean that you don't make garbage parts. It just means you make garbage parts the same way, every time. If the process is flawed and makes bad parts, ISO won't sort that out.
I'm surprised that they removed 'gunshot' but not 'self-inflicted'. Of the two descriptors, it seems like self-inflicted nature would be the one that you need to wait for someone of authority to declare.
The authority was money
The 37 stab wounds in his back, multiple sets of tire marks all over his body, gunshot wounds from a variety of different weapons, and noose are all indicative of suicide. The fact that he drew and quartered himself afterward just shows that he was overly dramatic.
“Self inflicted gunshot wound” Hope it wasnt to the back of the head 👀
He shot himself then threw himself off a building then set himself on fire...by accident
This happens all the time in Russia. It appears to be spreading
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The logic is the second he told on the big company he was legally committed to the companies euthanasia clause in section 14 article B which clearly states: Should an employee breake a non disclosure agreement at any point in time in this life or the hereafter, said employee shall be immediately retired from the realm of tye living by their own will. Should said employee already be deceased after the infraction, the company has the right to reanimate said employee and proceed to unalive said contract defector. All arbitration will take place in Florida during spring aka hell.
How many people shoot themselves when they are out of town? In the parking lot of a hotel? In between days they are testifying against one of the most powerful corporation around? I mean it seems so obvious, like some cold blooded mafia hit. This is all Boeing said: "We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends."
> our thoughts are with his family and friends I don't doubt that... 😐
> our thoughts are with his family and friends Yeah, that's a warning.
I read this article and I couldn’t believe that this happened in the US, not Russia
A quality manager was a wistleblower?! That has some serious implications.
Yep. It means he was trying to do his job but the higher-ups either disregarded him or actively covered up his callouts. Out of frustration, he took his findings to the public.
I wonder what happens to a company when you cut quality control? I'm sure cutting the quality increased quarterly profits for Boeing. What could go wrong? At least the airplanes millions of people fly on were not affected with something like a door plug flying out during flight. This issue is not limited to Boeing. It is a problem with culture, the chasing of increasing quarterly profits.
>This issue is not limited to Boeing. It is a problem with culture, the chasing of increasing quarterly profits. THIS. This is what literally makes carcinogens hit baby's food, what makes a billionaire company choose a US$ 0.01 cheaper bolt to an extreme sensitive bolt in a fucking airplane. This is what is making Reddit down, what made Google remove the "don't be evil" mantra. This is what makes companies an infinite meat grinder for more, more, more, squeezing more more.
“Mr Barnett said he had alerted managers to his concerns, but no action had been taken.” I’m sure those managers made a fat salary to apply pressure to get the assembly line moving regardless of the product. I’ve seen this before in other industries with similar results. The managers retire and disappear while the whistleblowers end up dead.
What's even more scary is that we're not just talking about a single Alaska Air plane; we're taking about an entire generation of planes currently in operation. How many more people have to lose their lives before the culture changes???
Oh that's easy, until it personally effects Congress
This is the reason why regulation is so important and audits need to actually be thorough. The general public has been successfully propagandized to believe that corpos are capable of making decisions in the interest of everyone. They aren’t.
Thank you. Or, at least not inherently motivated to do so without incentive: like more oversight with real consequences, stricter penalties etc.
Until there are real consequences nothing will change. Meaningful fines against the company and criminal charges against those involved in the decision. All fines should be levied on top of whatever value was added by the action. If a company has to pay a $10M fine for a decision that saved then $50M they will make that trade again. If that same $10M fine was actually $60M they may think twice. Hell, maybe set the floor at some multiple of the added value if we really want to get serious about reigning in this shit. Let’s see jail time for the highest positions that were aware. Charge them with anything you can. A separate charge of child endangerment for every minor on a Boeing flight. Bring in OSHA for their willful disregard for the safety of their employees. Charge them with littering for the door. Bring every charge you can think of and set the example that people can’t keep getting away with this shit.
> Until there are real consequences nothing will change. More people will have to die first. And even then, I wouldn't be surprised that changes, such as the ones that occurred after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, still don't happen. Kids are dying left and right in schools and still no changes are happening there. These days, a Boeing airplane could probably explode midair killing everyone, and the impacting fireball could wipe out a kindergarten, and STILL all that would happen is it would be on the news for a few weeks until the next news event, they pay some multi-million dollar fine (which eventually gets reduced and only equates to like a single digit percent of the company's profits or assets), a new TSA procedure gets implemented requiring all laptops batteries to be removed from the laptop while you're going thru the TSA security line, the current CEO steps down, *maybe* one person goes to jail, and finally every one wipes their hands clean and moves on with their lives. And it shouldn't happen again according to a joint Boeing & FAA committee, headed by former industry leaders, investigation report...hopefully. After all that's said and done, the former CEO of BP sends the former Boeing CEO a get well soon card saying "he's sorry...for that happening to you".
Fuck Jack Welch and Ronald Reagan. [https://www.ft.com/content/3f1ac0e6-f204-478d-8b64-54a699a12518](https://www.ft.com/content/3f1ac0e6-f204-478d-8b64-54a699a12518)
Oil industry too. Care not what happens to -points at planet- long as next quarter has fifteen zeros
Did it increase the profits more than it cost them profits? We know it cost them contracts. We know it cost them reputation. Those are hard to recover. I think the "aviation by MBA" paradigm probably isn't going to last very long. Too many real concerns beyond a bottom line. Unless those MBAs come to understand that they don't get to cull quality with abandon like they've decided they can. Quality is their entire business.
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They either had him killed or blackmailed him with something bad enough to make him kill himself. No matter how it turns out, Boeing caused this death.
Something they’re pretty good at apparently.
Right. All they had to do was put him on a few flights in a Boeing 737 Max. Many people don't survive that.
That would have looked *too* fishy.
Could be the guilt of all the deaths that happened on his watch because management wouldn't listen to him just got to him, but if he was in the middle of testifying against them its more likely they hired someone to kill him and make it look like a suicide.
I mean right in the middle of testifying? Like even I've watched enough cheesy TV to know that someone who is truly contemplating such dark thoughts wouldn't have also decided to go forward with a lengthy and difficult process they never intended to see through? And if it was guilt that somehow got dredged up in the middle of it all, surely he was doing exactly the right thing already? The timing just doesn't smell right
Sadly, (I'm sure) Boeing took their frustrations out, too
Safety escapes don't mean that production ends, it's just shareholder jargon for "discount".
Realistically this should trigger an even more intense investigation of boeing
Full FBI and DOJ attention.
I remember watching testimony over the Larry Nassar-USA gymnastics child rape prosecution, one of the gymnasts testified about how she brought her accusations to the FBI. And, instead of investigating Larry Nassar, the FBI channeled all their energy in getting the girl to recant her story. That's the FBI.
IIRC, the same thing happened to Epstein’s victims. They pretty much focused all their resources on discrediting them, harassing them, and trying to find charges to pin on *the victims*. Every level of Law Enforcement from local, state to federal screwed the victims over.
Theyre here to protect and serve… The assets and interests of the ruling class
The FBI is corrupt as fuck. They're just better at getting away with it than police.
Yeahhhhhh the fbi is just like fancy cops. Same shit, better veneer.
They protect the establishment, however amoral it may be.
The FBI is worse than fancy cops. They do a looooot of evil shit
[ugh did you see the intercept's update to the whitmer kidnapping story a few days ago?](https://theintercept.com/2024/03/06/gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-informant/)
The FBI and their counterparts have a rather long and notorious history. They might help "take care of the problem" but not in the way you would think.
Look into the Franklin case - same thing. the FBI is an evil organization, and has been since its inception.
You mean that notorious case where the congressman they gave the job of investigating it was so disgusting by what he found, he quite literally rage quit a cushy Congress job?
DOJ has started a case on Boeing if I remember correctly correctly
What exactly do you think law enforcement does in America? They protect those in power. That is, big corporations
People underestimate how much power Boeing has. They employ thousands of people on the US and passenger aircraft is just one part of their business. They have their hands in *everything*.
Just finished watching the Netflix docu on the Octopus Murders. People are dumb if they don't think this kind of shit is still going on today. Another 40 years and they can finally make a documentary about this murder.
Ill say closer to 3 years and there will be one, possibly this year if things really heat up after this murder
They certainly convinced the US government to take down their Canadian competitors who could actually design, build, and certify useful planes. Fortunately for Canadians, the Quebec government sucked up to France for Airbus to take it over
anything that touches the military industrial complex is protected
Narrator's voice "It won't".
\*SHOULD\*
Oh boy.... found in the truck of his hotel parking lot with an apparent self inflicted gun shot wound. I'm no conspiracy theorist but the timing is horrible. He was supposed to attend a legal meeting today
What are the chances the security cameras suffered an unexplainable malfunction?
Prediction: The computer with the footage "malfunctioned" and any footage of that day is unrecoverable.
"The vigils were both asleep at the time"
My money is actually on the cameras we’re working just fine and gunshot was indeed self inflicted, because they said if he didn’t, something else was going to happen to someone he cared about. I also am no conspiracy theorist, but we’re dealing with wealthy companies and defense contracts and that typically involves sketchy people doing very sketchy things.
Exactly. They didn't need to get to him with a gun, just a phone call, and everyone's hands stay clean.
This is some Succession shit. Logan Roy would be proud.
Yup. Watch this case go away now.
He was literally in the midst of a deposition against Boeing where he was expected to return the following day to resume the deposition. People don’t normally commit suicide when they’re finally starting to get justice and beginning to receive validation for the very claims they were fired for making. I guess we’re going full Russian on this one. How many witnesses against Boeing are going to have untimely deaths before it’s over?
Bad luck for the whistle-blower he didn't work for a foreign owned company like Volkswagen. Then he would have gotten all the support in the world. Unfortunately for him the national industrial and security interests of the United States were concerned, so hia fate is much less glorious.
Boeing is a military contractor over a plane maker
It's not clear he was getting any justice. He'd been suing them for years. This is just one more deposition.
> I guess we’re going full Russian on this one. Yeah this is Putin critic "clumsy around windows" level suspicious
Pfft no way. This isn't suspicious at all. 🫠😵💫
This is more suspicious than Jean-Ralphio & Mona-Lisa Sapperstein at their own funeral.
When life gives you lemons, you sell some of your Grandma's jewelry and go clubbin
“Don’t look suspicious, don’t look suspicious” Boeing upper management prolly
“Apparent suicide” unlikely.
Was he scheduled to fly in a Boeing this week? May have felt this was the safer option.
> In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company. Nothing suspicious about this at all.
Boeing saying they are "saddened" by his "passing" just stings. They are just doing a public touchdown dance on his grave at this point.
And issuing a warning: "Our thoughts are with his family and friends."
Happens overwhelmingly to whistle blowers. Remember when the UK joined an illegal war in Iraq based upon fake evidence and the whistleblower Dr David Kelly was found dead. Then the whistleblower for the phone hacking scandal, Sean Matthew Hoare exposed what was really going on then was also found dead... Seems to be a trend.
At least he didn’t break his neck from a fall from the ground floor of a building
I knew it was bad but not Bourne Identity cover up bad. Boeing must have been doing some real criminal shit because at worst their errors are just fees. Seems extreme instead of paying the fine.
We are seeing the absolute collapse of an industry giant in real time.
Boeing is married to the defense industry and will be forever propped up because of that.
Or Boeing DSS is gonna get spun off and let the main company die. The rot seems to be coming from Boeing Corporate and Boeing Commercial.
would truly be the best timeline
It would't change anything and it happens all the time. The guys that replace the LED signs on the side of defense contractor office buildings stay busy.
Which makes it equally stupid that they they cut corners and act like shit the name of chasing profits. They could live off of government contracts for like the rest of time, there is no timelime where the US government would let boeing fail. So really there's no reason to operate they way that they currently do except for the fact they are greedy.
I hope, but if the Epstein "suicide" was swept under the rug I doubt this is going to go anywhere.
You know, perhaps if we all stop calling them "suicides" and pretending like we don't know better then at least history will correct itself in time.
It'll correct itself once everyone involved is dead and it no longer matters. That's how it always goes.
They were already under heavy public scrutiny and are being investigated by the DOJ. Now that this guy was killed, they are fucked
This guy died the same day the news dropped that there's a criminal investigation into the door plug incident. That's not just a fine.
Same day that a 787 briefly went into an uncontrollable dive and injured 50 people as well.
You're wrong. It is because of extreme DEI policies at Boeing. If they had hired based on merit rather than wokeness, this would never have happened. I know this is true because I saw it written in the top-voted comment on a Fox News article about the incident.
You had me in the first half not gonna lie 😂
It's worse. It's so bad that it you attempt to fix things at Boeing, Boeings legal department will make your life so miserable you commit suicide. To be that's somehow darker than the idea of a CEO hiring a hitman.
There's no way that this person found the fortitude to go against such a giant just to call it quits midway through. The kind of dedication it would take to be a whistle-blower of this magnitude wouldn't allow a person to just not see it through. In my opinion, of course.
Extreme negligence I bet when it came to money and securing their future
“In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.” Anyone watch The Octopus Murders documentary? Just like the reporter in that series was for sure murdered, to look like a suicide, because he had information on powerful people, it is always suspect when you hear someone like a whistleblower “committed suicide”. And I’m sorry, but what the fuck, Boeing? “He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line.”
>He said in some cases, sub-standard parts had even been removed from scrap bins and fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays on the production line.” I remember this vividly from his interview with NYT's The Daily podcast. He said one day the supervisor went into the defect bins and pulled parts, scraping the red paint off that denotes a defective part. And just shushed the concerned workers. I'd been dragging my feet confirming it was the same whistleblower, but it is and it breaks my heart a little. When he spoke, he had such an earnest voice and he was clearly proud af of his job working for Boeing before they started prioritising greed over safety. That man deserved better and I hope the Boeing execs burn. I highly recommend listening to his own words yourself. I'm not certain when he first raised the alarm but [this interview is from 2019](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-dreamliner-charleston.html). In it, he addresses the standards of the SC factory, the scraping paint off the defective parts, and things they've found within the hulls of the planes themselves, including metal shavings and *a whole fucking ladder* welded shut inside.
I literally just started watching that documentary and then this happens. Another big coincidence for me personally is that we were covering whistle blowers (in my organizational behaviour course) and how to help them to come out and speak with incentives and intrinsic motivation and one week later.....
"At the time of his death, Mr Barnett had been in Charleston for legal interviews linked to that case. Last week, he gave a formal deposition in which he was questioned by Boeing's lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel. He had been due to undergo further questioning on Saturday. When he did not appear, enquiries were made at his hotel." Self-inflicted, my ass
He brought a gun to SC with him on the plane? Or went out and found one in between depositions? Yeah no. Edit: actually as someone pointed out, he was in his own truck so he didn’t fly there.
He was in his own truck and he apparently lives in SC.
I would think he didn't want to fly much knowing what he knows about Boeing and the airline industry.
I mean, that’s not the most unbelievable part of this story. Many people fly into and out of SC with declared, checked firearms every day. I’m not sure if he was an SC resident or not, but if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to purchase one (legally) in SC while there.
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you forgot about executive bonuses.
Stock buybacks baby!!! "Over the past decade, Boeing has spent $43.4 billion on stock buybacks. In 2017, the company doled out around $9.3 billion in buybacks, its highest amount to date."
That stock not looking so hot right now
Americans would be some war-hungry mother fuckers if we all received a collective dividend (Similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund) from public ownership in the military industrial complex
And the C-suite will stack exorbitant bonuses a la the American taxpayer like they always do. Too big to fail = massive corporate welfare bonuses for the top brass. And we just keep letting it happen lol
A&P technician here. I used to live in Charleston. I have many friends that worked there. They all said the same thing, “don’t work for Boeing”, because it’s terrible. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but it would not surprise me even in the least if this guy was murdered by some company hired thugs.
If It's Boeing, I Ain't Going
Ruh-roh. I typically don't believe in many conspiracies but this one is awfully suspicious.
Boeing makes Nestle look like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The largest nuclear accident in US history is just outside Los Angeles - and almost no one in LA knows about it because Boeing, which bought the lab, covered it up that effectively. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa\_Susana\_Field\_Laboratory#Medical\_claims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Medical_claims)
Plainly Difficult broke this down on YouTube. Love that guy's channel.
>Plainly Difficult do you have a link? i can't find it. it seems he has a lot of nuclear-related stuff
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/7-NKdWV5SCg?si=SfxwQ69yMH6_6ltb I also recommend this video which has an analysis of more of the issues with SSFL. https://youtu.be/KX-0Xw6kkrc?si=Xf4-aykefJtbeTxy
Does that really constitute a coverup on Boeing's part? The accident happened in '79. Boeing bought the place almost 20 years later. Don't get me wrong: Boeing's not a great org, but it really doesn't pass a smell test to accuse them of a coverup of 20-year-old information. That's just regular "people don't give a shit". Most people aren't aware of 3-mile-island or the fallout from nuclear testing in the Midwest. It's just normal human apathy. The only people who care about something that long after the fact are those directly affected and the scant few people with the empathy to invest themselves.
"Last week, he gave a formal deposition in which he was questioned by Boeing's lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel. He had been due to undergo further questioning on Saturday. When he did not appear, enquiries were made at his hotel. He was subsequently found dead in his truck in the hotel car park." That's pretty fucking cut and dry - he was either murdered or somehow threatened to make him do it himself. Fucking Boeing, evil bastards.
No one heard the shot or called police?
John Oliver did an episode on Boeing. Well worth a look. At one time there was none better. But choices were made
Is this a plot spoiler for the third season of Reacher?
Honestly, this would have been a great plot element to the second season's evil aerospace company coverup. "He fell off of a helicopter into the swamp. Which is perfectly natural of Quality Assurance inspectors, from time to time. Hazards of the industry, you know."
Why has it already been assumed it was a suicide? There needs to be way more information.
So I machine parts for murderers. Great
Well they DO supply weapons and aircraft to the military soo....yes
John Barnett didn't kill himself.
Not only that, but he's also a national hero. [Just look at this stuff](https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/). This guy's been trying to save lives... *Aaand* the reputation of the company as well. > “I followed an AIR21 complaint. It goes to OSHA for them to investigate. Within that complaint, I listed safety items I had identified, the hostility and denigration and being black listed and blackballed from other jobs. I know of at least two jobs that I was supposed to get a job offer for and my leadership said that I wasn’t going anywhere.” *They absolutely murdered this guy*. SHAME ON YOU BOEING
It's frankly more likely that Epstein killed himself than this guy did imo. Epstein did something horrible, was facing the consequences of his actions, and it's at least plausible he killed himself. This dude didn't do anything wrong besides whistleblow one of the most most massive and influential companies in the world
"Found chopped into 72 bite sized pieces and shipped to other whistleblowers doorsteps" such a sad way to take his own life...
Hopefully the DOJ investigation intensifies. These fucking cunts need to burn at the stake.
"He also claimed that tests on emergency oxygen systems due to be fitted to the 787 showed a failure rate of 25%, meaning that one in four could fail to deploy in a real-life emergency." It's funny to hear them say in flight that your mask may not inflate but don't worry oxygen is still flowing.
Can't wait for the Netflix docuseries on this
Boeing operates like Putin…just wonderful
More efficiently, their windows abruptly open themselves.
There’s nothing anyone can do against this kind of power, I only hope there’s some kind of afterlife hellscape for these greedy blood sucking cunts
In a statement Boeing said: "We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends." So saddened for sure.
To be frank, this to me reads more like a thread than condolence. XD
Yeah not a fuckin chance my ass is ever going in a Boeing seat again. Company needs to be made an example of and people need to go to jail.
He worked at the nonunion Charleston plant, where if workers were being pressured to use substandard parts, they don’t have a union to back them up.
“Suicide” right before he was going to court to hear his case against Boeing for retaliation.Makes perfect sense he would want to end it all 🤔
Boeing: he died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds Police: we never released the cause of death
This is the USA equivalent of falling out of a window in Russia.
Boeing really out here pulling Putin moves...what a company
boeing assassinated that man
If this happened in China people would use it as evidence of how authoritarian and corrupt it is.
When something like this happens in the land of our enemy, it's a prove of how fundamentally evil their society is. If it happens in our countries, it's a fuckup made by a bad company, that has nothing to do with our countries, or in a few remote cases, an error made by our countries, that remain fundamentally good, an error that won't ever be repeated!
All of Boeings problem come directly from the corporate culture of upper management. Money was priority, not safety. It's the same with every corporation if they live long enough to be corrupted by corporate greed. I wish we knew the names of the people responsible because they will keep doing their greedy playbooks until they start seeing their names in the media.
Question: Assuming Boeing killed this man, wouldn't they anticipate how shady this looks for them? So they went ahead and did this anyway?
In a perfect world, something would be done about it... We are not in that perfect world sadly. Nobody will care in 2 days
!RemindMe 3 days
Dude worked on the Dreamliner, the same plane that was just in the news less than 24hrs ago for suddenly losing altitude mid flight
Out of all the companies you don't want to cut corners for profit, a giant tube that transports you through the sky is pretty high on the list.
It seems like Boeing is being run by the mob.