by WorldTribune Staff, May 2, 2024
Joshua Dean is the second whistleblower to raise concerns about the safety of Boeing aircraft to have died in the past two months.
Dean, 45, was a former quality auditor for Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas. He also worked on the Boeing 737 Max program, Newsweek reported on Thursday.
Dean died Tuesday morning after his family says his health deteriorated suddenly. He was in critical condition for two weeks after he started experiencing difficulty breathing. He tested positive for influenza B and a MRSA staph infection and later developed pneumonia, according to a Facebook post by his mother.
Dean had previously been in good health, according to the Seattle Times, which first reported on his death. He was noted for having a healthy lifestyle.
His death comes two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barrett was found dead of an apparent suicide a day after testifying against the plane manufacturer.
Dean filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2023 over improper manufacturing practices he said he witnessed. He had been fired months before, allegedly in retaliation for bringing up safety concerns with Spirit management.
In October 2022, as quality auditor at Spirit, Dean flagged lax standards and the presence of an “excessive amount of defects” at a Boeing manufacturing plant in Wichita.
Dean said he flagged what he said were serious manufacturing defects to management, but said that nothing was done.
According to a lawsuit filed in December 2023, Spirit “concealed” the issues flagged by Dean from investors until they were revealed by independent reporting in August 2023, 10 months later.
Dean claimed that the company had fired him in retaliation for flagging the defects at the Wichita plant, using a “false justification” (the failure to spot a manufacturing flaw in the fittings that attach the vertical tail fin to the fuselage during an audit) as a pretext to “scapegoat and silence him,” the lawsuit reads.
Dean had also filed a complaint against Spirit with the Federal Aviation Administration, accusing the company of “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at the manufacturer. The investigation concluded that Dean’s allegations had substance, but did not provide further details.
Barnett was found dead in an apparent suicide in March in the midst of giving depositions against Boeing, alleging that the company retaliated against him for exposing safety issues with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. An investigation into his death is still ongoing.
Since the whistleblowers came forward, negative headlines for Boeing linked to safety issues have harmed its reputation to the point that a majority of Americans would pay more to avoid flying on its aircraft, according to a recent poll.
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