Prior to his death, whistleblower 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.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
      4·
      8 months ago

      I mean… It takes a bit to learn how to fly a plane. They wouldn’t really want to dispose of that skill and learn to fly Airbus instead.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
        41·
        8 months ago

        I’m no pilot, but I can’t imagine these particular variants have been around so long for retraining to be a serious issue. Not when mass death is on the line and older, reliable Boeing planes still exist.

        • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
          3·
          8 months ago

          I am not sure what you are trying to say exactly, however the re-certification that should be required for the 737-MAX was exactly the reason for introducing the MCAS software to prevent the crew certified for older 737 models from pushing the nose into the ground on take-off. That, together with glossing over the major design change so that no pilot would flag “hey, this is a new plane, we should get a proper new certification for this” contributed to the two crashes, murdering 350something people over profit.

          Boeing wanted to sell a new plane model with significantly altered aerodynamic behavior as a “variant” of an existing one so airlines could save cost on not having to re-certify pilots.

          • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
            1·
            8 months ago

            I’m saying if the newer, problematic planes aren’t going to be forced to ground by regulators, pilots should refuse to fly them. Surely there are plenty of planes still flying built by Boeing before they sold souls. Surely those won’t require massive retraining. Fly them instead.

            • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
              1·
              8 months ago

              If I learned anything in my time on this planet is that there are far too few people in the world willing to stand up for their principles :(