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.

  • IzzyScissor@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    He was staying at a hotel out-of-state while giving evidence against Boeing.
    He was found dead in his car in the hotel parking lot from a ‘self-inflicted wound’.

    There’s really no other way to look at it logically than he was murdered by Boeing. Nothing else adds up.

    • deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      He wasn’t even done giving the deposition that he literally volunteered to give…

        • Aleric@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t know what you were trying to achieve beyond publicly announcing you’re a petty, boring person.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Did he not literally volunteer?

          I mean, I get it, I’m sick of “literally” meaning “figuratively”, and I’d die on that hill with you, but this is the dumbest possible time to make that stand. In this case “literally” just means “literally”.

        • maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Literally has been used as an intensifier for over 200 years. The Oxford English Dictionary includes a definition of literally meaning “figuratively”. Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain all used it that way in their writing.

          So until you write something as well respected and enduring as Sanditon, The Great Gatsby, Tom Sawyer, or Ulysses and collect your mother fucking Nobel prize in literature, please choke on a literal dick you confidently incorrect fuckwit.

          • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Wondering if they historically used it more as in a ‘literarily’ sense and with license

            Evolving language and all that

            (I’m not trying to argue anything, just musing)

          • Riskable@programming.dev
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            9 months ago

            I don’t care what justification you throw out. Misuse of literally drives me figuratively insane!

        • force@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          i’m literally sorry that you literally don’t know standard english my guy, i literally don’t know what to literally say to you 😭

    • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I mean, I think the logical thing to do is wait until the evidence comes out and we know for sure. It’s entirely possible he was under a lot of stress from all this and did kill himself. Now, I don’t deny that it’s a HUGE. FUCKING. CONICIDENCE. but those do happen from time to time. Its also a hell of a story, good-guy whistleblower murdered by greedy multinational aerospace company and defense contractor…during an election year…if you wrote the script nobody would buy it.

      Let’s be suspicious, but not jump to conclusions.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Jesus, do you think maybe they’re trying to run out the clock too? Who wants to bet that a certain CEO is angling for a political position within a certain potential administration? Perhaps head of the FAA?

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      An investor could’ve threatened his family? (So not directly Boeing)

      If he got a bunch of hate online, or had crippling anxiety about the testimony he still had to give? I mean you could even speculate he thought he would be killed someday, so he took it into his own hands.

      (Please note the above is all BS!)

      I would argue the jury is still out and that we may never know.

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Direct involvement might be a question still. But general involvement is absolute. If Boeing wasn’t so shitty he almost assuredly would still be alive.

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          I suppose even if nobody ever said a word to him you could make that argument. No poor business practices = no testimony = no car in a hotel parking lot.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        An investor could’ve threatened his family? (So not directly Boeing)

        Or somebody involved in corporate corruption and embezzling in Boeing. That would be worse for Boeing as a whole than him remaining alive, but possibly better for that somebody who may not be identified.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        The FAA has allowed this mess to continue for far too long because Boeing is an industry titan. Too big to fail. Well, maybe not anymore.

        • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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          9 months ago

          Too big to fail is a terrible concept that was invented.

          If a company gets too big to the point that it’s failure is going to drag down the company. That company should be broken up to allow them to to fail. Anything else is either reward the company for making bad decisions or allow companies to become stagnant because if anything happens, the government will bail them out.

          Edit: Spelling and grammar are important.

        • Kalysta@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          What do you mean? They fail all the time. Fail to secure doors. Fail to have working oxygen masks. Fail to warn pilots about a system that points the nose of the plane down constantly…

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        9 months ago

        Not sure how much jurisdiction or investigation the FFA does for murders that occur on the ground though.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It makes no sense for them to kill him, that draws wayyyy too much attention. More likely if they were involved, they blackmailed him and that caused him to kill himself, or another party that also wanted to keep him quiet killed him and they didn’t care if it looked like Boeing did it.

    • rsuri@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Does suicide ever add up? It being a hit doesn’t add up either. A hotel parking lot is a rather public place to try to force someone to kill themselves.