Boeing’s ‘Hostile’ Factory Gave Whistleblower PTSD, Lawyer Says

A Boeing manager was so distressed by working conditions at its South Carolina plant that he suffered PTSD, his lawyer has revealed.

John Barnett, who was employed by the aero giant for 32 years before taking his own life in March, was traumatised by the “hostile work environment”, according to Brian Knowles, an attorney representing more than a dozen current and former Boeing employees.

“With John, it was a very difficult seven-year legal battle that had been going on,” Knowles told Newsweek.

“He had been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety issues from being exposed to a hostile work environment at the 787 program, and that really took a toll on him and, unfortunately, he ended up taking his own life.”

Barnett spent his final seven years with Boeing as a quality manager at the company’s assembly facility in Charleston, South Carolina.

Barnett oversaw production of the 787 Dreamliner wide-body and, in 2019, publicly accused Boeing fitting non-conforming parts onto the jet.

In an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, Barnett said that he was pressured by management “not to document defects, to work outside procedures, to allow defective material to be installed without being corrected.”

According to Knowles, Barnett was diagnosed with diagnosed with both PTSD and anxiety in early 2017 due to the work environment at the Charleston facility.

Newsweek has contacted Boeing to inquire about the conditions at its factories.

Knowles said that his firm is now in the process of filing a wrongful death cause of action against Boeing, a civil suit brought by family of the deceased against an individual or entity that could be held liable for their death.

Barnett’s parents have previously said that they hold the company responsible for the death of their son.

Knowles also represented Joshua Dean, the former quality auditor at Boeing’s fuselage contractor Spirit AeroSystems, who alleged that his warnings about defects on the Boeing 737 MAX had been ignored.

The 737 MAX, Boeing’s bestselling plane, was the aircraft involved in the 2018 and 2019 crashes which killed 346.

Dean passed away in April at the age of 45, following the sudden onset of a bacterial infection.

However, Knowles told Newsweek that his clients’ actions had “inspired workers to come forward to say enough is enough and that quality and safety matter over production and profits.”

“For all the whistleblowers that came forward, for all of us, the flying public, Boeing needs to come clean,” Knowles said, “and actually put into effect programs that emphasize quality and safety and not metrics, and not just accounting and making money.”

Knowles referenced a 2020 report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which found Boeing demonstrated a “culture of concealment” when it came to disclosing information about its aircraft to regulators.

“That’s not a culture you want when you’re building an aircraft carrying hundreds of people’s lives,” Knowles said, recommending that the company incentivize workers to come forward with quality and safety issues, and fire the managers who are found to have retaliated against past whistleblowers.

“The company should succeed and all of our clients want to see the company succeed, because it needs to succeed, Knowles added. “But it makes it very difficult when the company believes they’re above the law that they can do no wrong.”

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