Boeing (NYSE:BA) whistleblower John Barnett died by suicide, according to a police report released Friday, ending an investigation of the death of a longtime employee who sued the company, claiming retaliation against him.
The Charleston Police Department in South Carolina said it concluded its probe into the March 9 death, saying the county coroner’s office determined that Barnett had killed himself with a handgun.
Barnett also was found with notebook that indicated “he was going through a period of serious personal distress,” according to a media release about the police investigation.
Barnett, a former quality manager who had worked at Boeing (BA) for decades, told The New York Times in 2019 that he had discovered unsafe wiring clusters in Boeing’s manufacturing processes that could have led to the catastrophic failure of an aircraft.
Since Barnett’s initial public warnings, Boeing (BA) company has suffered several high-profile safety and quality lapses, including the blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX plane shortly after takeoff in January.