(MENAFN- Live Mint) An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing 241 of 242 people on board. The aircraft was flying to London Gatwick from Ahmedabad . The crash is the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 787 since it entered service in 2009, and one of the worst tragedies in India's aviation history.

The crash has turned the spotlight back on John Barnett, a former Boeing quality control manager who, police say, died by suicide after lawyers questioned him about his whistleblowing on alleged jumbo jet defects.

Who was John Barnett?

Born on February 23, 1962, in California , Barnett was a graduate of Bolton High School, and had moved to Louisiana with his mother and three older brothers after his parents' separation.

Barnett was a cab driver before he joined the US Air Force , an NDTV report said. Later, he joined Rockwell International in Palmdale, California, where he worked on parts of NASA's Space Shuttle programme, including the Atlantis orbiter, the report added.

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In the 1980s, Barnett worked as an electrician on the B-1 Lancer bomber. In 1988, he joined Boeing as a quality inspector after settling on Camano Island, Washington. By 2010, he was working at Boeing's South Carolina plant in North Charleston, the assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner .

What were the safety lapses that Barnett flagged?

Barnett, a longtime Boeing employee, shared his safety concerns with journalists after he retired in 2017. He said he once saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wiring and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing's 787 planes, an AP report said.

Between 2010 and 2017, Barnett said there was a steady decline in safety protocols at the North Charleston plant. According to him, employees were being pressured to overlook defects and meet production quotas, the NDTV report added.

Barnett also claimed some parts were missing or not properly recorded during the building process, showing poor safety checks, apart from other concerns about how Boeing was building its planes.

In 2017, he filed formal complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The FAA did confirm certain issues he highlighted and instructed Boeing to fix them. OSHA later dismissed his claims, ruling in favour of Boeing in 2021, a decision Barnett appealed, the report said.

According to an AP report, Barnett shared his concerns with his supervisors and others before leaving Boeing, but according to a lawsuit filed by his family against the aircraft maker, they responded by ignoring him and then harassing him.

In 2019, Barnett went public with his allegations in media interviews. According to the police, the 62-year-old shot himself on March 9, 2024, in Charleston after answering questions from attorneys for several days. He lived in Louisiana.

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