Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

Recreational Placebos@midwest.social to News@lemmy.world – 1577 points –
Boeing whistleblower found dead in US
bbc.com

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.

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I am not a conspiracy theorist. Reality is trying it’s damnedest to make me one.

Eh. There will always be real conspiracies and then...lizard people conspiracies.

This shit right here? yeah.....they killed him. 100%. No doubt in my fucking mind.

I mean, he was old...people die—

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

oh shit they totally fucking killed him

Relevant Chart (open image in new tab to see it larger):

Not sure what to make of this chart except that a few items are misplaced imo and I agree conspiracy shit is an alt right pipeline in most cases. Maybe it wasn't always but whatever.

Anyhow.

I haven't followed up on the news. But there sure wasn't much available yesterday. So as far as actual reliable evidence we the public have little.

The guy being dead with an apparent self inflicted wound (as BBC and others said) or gunshot (as Corp Crime Reporter said) during whistleblower court proceedings against a giant company is consistent with suicide from:

  • Stress of the case or from blackmail
  • Stress from something totally unrelated.
  • Some other cause (depression, terminal illness...)

It is also consistent with:

  • murder made to look like suicide to silence his further testimony and dissuade others

Any of these is certainly plausible at least. As is Epstein being murdered. Actually, that one is more plausible, given the few suspicious coincidences and the sheer number of people who wanted his secrets to stay that way. Whereas extra-terrestrial UFOs aren't all that plausible based on our current body of scientific knowledge.

I agree with pretty much everything you've written. The only point I would like to make is that the section where the UFOs sits is the "We Have Questions" section, which is between the "Things That Actually Happened" and "Unequivocally False But Mostly Harmless" sections. I interpret this section as containing things that cannot (as of 2021) be conclusively shown to be true or false. Also note that they're not even saying ET UFOs, but just UFOs. I think the flying saucer is just for visual flair. If I recall correctly, the person who designed this is/was an actual graphic designer.

Lol, they mustn't be a great one, because their design seems to have led at least one of y'all to interpret the labels as denoting for the category below, rather than upper/lower bounds between two categories. i.e. things in the blue category above the "speculation line" label are speculative but not yet "leaving reality"

Epstein didn't kill himself though. The circumstances where above the level of questioning, there were cameras turned off and he was supposedly on suicide watch.

As I much as I also believe that, there is no hard evidence (that we know of) that he didn't kill himself. I think that's why it's in that section. The suspiciousness of it is through the roof, but we can't prove it.

Sure we can't prove it but that diagram puts it at the same level of UFOs.

Right, the chart is far from perfect, but they just grouped them both under the "we have questions" section. We have lots of unresolved questions about Epstein's death, we have lots of unresolved questions about UFO sightings.

No, I understand we have questions but explaining epstein requires a couple of details, while UFOs require new laws of physics.

You definitely have a good point. I don’t think the designer probably meant much by it though. It’s only a casual classification.

this is bulshit, epstein definetly didnt kill himself, for starters.

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It's possible it was stress from the litigation. In fact, if you don't specify whose stress, I'd almost guarantee it.

There are circumstances where conspiracy the likeliest explanation.

This is one of those.

If it actually happened, it's just a "conspiracy," not a "conspiracy theory."

He didn’t show any signs of depression or suicidal tendencies… signs like voluntarily flying on a boeing plane.

It's no longer a conspiracy when it's proven true.

This isn't proof. That's the crazy part. I hear ya. I'm with ya. I don't see anything that is concrete physical evidence to tie it all together. As of now.

I agree, I just was making a joke. It's a conspiracy until you realize it's a fact. MK-ULTRA, Government spying on you (which time? ) , Big tobacco hiding that cigerettes cause cancer, Stacks of ET games are buried in New Mexico, even dark stories like the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments were all conspiracy theories at one time. Sadly they all turned out to be true.

There's also the conspiracy theory of conspiracy theories that the government actually likes and even spreads conspiracy theories so that the real ones get lost in the noise and written off by the general public as "just another loony conspiracy theory"

I like that one because I absolutely don't like it, but it's hard not to like and think that it's worth being a likable conspiracy theory.
And that's the problem with conspiracy theories, you like to like them and then you can't be sure.

It's just like that sometimes.

Very few conspiracies are as dark and terrifying as (checks notes) Atari games buried in the desert.

A conspiracy is when a group plans to do something unlawful. So if it's proven true it's still a conspiracy. It just stops being a theory.

A "theory" is a collection of information we currently understand to be true.

The term "conspiracy theory" is a misnomer that should be correctly expressed as "conspiracy hypothesis". But that's just a theory.

I think the confusion arises from the secrecy part. A conspiracy is understood to be a secret unlawful activity, especially of subversive nature. When it's not secret anymore is it still conspiracy? or is it just organised crime? I know it feels just pedantic, but this is why the media abuses words to steer collective opinion. Nowadays you can just say something is a conspiracy and people will believe it's fake without recourse.

I was just being kind of funny. Language is weird and I'm pretty sure that the word conspiracy is headed through the change to mean "Crazy people think this thing is true"

Then we need to find another word to express when people gets together to do shady shit, which happens more often than not.

No arguments here. I'd like to be able to differentiate between people going shady shit and flat earth believers.

That's the most annoying misunderstanding. A conspiracy is still a conspiracy when you prove it happened/it's happening. Conspirators remain conspirators, which means they were working together to do something illegal in secret. Ok, so now it's not secret anymore, but they still conspired.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident being created by the US was a conspiracy theory until it wasn’t.

Not every “conspiracy theory” is wrong. Sometimes people in charge are actually trying to cover something up. It’s not insane to be skeptical of an official line until it’s backed up with proof.

Lizard people, however, don’t exist.

My comment was meant to be tongue in cheek but you pretty much nailed the message I’m after. Don’t jump to the conspiracy conclusion but you have to have something wrong with your brain if this doesn’t at least tickle your skeptic gland.

Lizard people, however, don’t exist.

Speak for yourself, upright ape.

That's what they want you to think.

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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.

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.

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?

Look, I'm not gonna say Boeing did it. Though if they did, I'd bet money they drove.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They don't gain much. The FAA is breathing down their neck already.

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.

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.

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…

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

At the point of a deposition, his complaints are already documented and can be verified by regulators.

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Guess the executives didn't want to wait for him to take one of their planes and die naturally by getting sucked out at 35,000 feet when a door falls off.

Well, that's not typical, if like to point that out.

“Local officials confirmed Mr. Barnett’s suicide. When asked how Mr. Barnett managed to fire the sniper shot through his bedroom window, the officer first on the scene only replied, “Trust me bro.”, while stuffing a large stack of 100 dollars bills back down the front of his pants.”

[2 week later] Former lead detective found dead in in what investigators have ruled a suicide. He apparently hung himself after a fit of rage where his house appeared to have kicked in his own front door, tore the hard drive out of his security camera hub, punched himself in the face a number of times, then tied the rope to a bannister and strung himself up.

(Interwebz pedant voice) actually there are several scenarios possible where one could conceivably kill themselves with a sniper rifle 100 yards away . . . People who don’t know about this are just so credulous, but weapons science has known for a long time that JFK actually killed himself . . .

i can't find it online, but im reasonably certain i heard an interview with this guy on Canadian public radio several years ago that really shook me. he talked basically about how he wouldn't fly on a Boeing plane, knowing what he knows and having seen what he'd seen, stuff like quality rejected parts getting taken back into inventory to meet quotas. the takeaway for me was that the quality control system that had previously worked so well was an invention of equal or possibly higher importance to any kind of aerodynamic innovation present on those planes. i work in an analogous role (in a different industry) and i really do take it more seriously after having heard the interview. nobody likes the work of quality assurance and you'll never see someone doing a non-conformance report on TV but it's a necessary condition for planes to stay in the sky. RIP to a real one and if he got murdered then i hope the industry burns

Neat, I'm jumping on a Boeing 737-700 in about 8 hours. Nice knowin ya while it lasted.

That feel was created before they started cutting corners. You should be fine.

I think even Boeing is still safer per passenger mile than any car, or biking/walking.

It's not a MAX so you'll probably be fine haha

My southwest flight will be on a max 8 both ways. Wish me luck.

John Oliver's Boeing broadcast last week included a video of a guy walking around a Boeing production floor asking all the people if any of them would be willing to fly in a Boeing. Of everyone he asked a single guy said yes and then followed it up with "but I kind of have a death wish."

There were more yes's, but they were cut out of the video. However, Oliver mentions after the video what amount of them said yes and what amount said no. Most of them did say "no" though.

If Boeing was running a tight ship with safety in mind, they should all have been yes. If one said no, that could be a disgruntled employee for some reason or another, but jesus....

Anyways, Airbus for me it is.

Think hard on this. This is an aerospace tech company.

Now-

Remember that Trump, a piece of shit coward that’s staring down the barrel of multiple prison sentences and desperately needs to win an election that could be influenced by the outcome of a trial…..

has the names and addresses of all the jurors in said trial.

What else does boeing do?... It wouldn't be military tech also? Like Apaches for example.

They should really make some sort of incentive to keep these people alive. Like if a whistle blower dies before the verdict of the trial/hearing make it an automatic assumption and multiply the punishment by 3 times (Treble!). Then you would have companies doing everything to not have whistle blowers die, not what we have today.

Your competitors take out contract hits against your whistleblower and you need to have bodyguards to protect them.

And then your head of security and the whistleblower fall in love until at the end of the movie the competitor assassin gets into the court waiting room and the head of security throws themselves into the ninja star's way and dies in the whistleblower's arms as the ultimate sacrifice is made for love and corporate profits.

I tear up just thinking about it.

Bravo. Hope you make Hollywood kid, you got the vision we need.

The current vision in Hollywood is sequels, reboots and milking any IP for all its worth.

Don't underestimate the franchise potential of The Whistleblower Bodyguard 4: Furious at Fast Food.

"They didn't salt the god damned fries AGAIN!?"

organizes heist

I see this as an absolute win. Also kinda liking the idea of big companies spending money in a spy vs spy sort of thing.

They do have an disincentive, its called decades in jail if its discovered you kill him.

Exactly this. In a fucked up way a rule like that would actually incentivise whistleblowers to become martyrs.

There should be presumption of guilt in this case.

What?? No that's ridiculous. People do kill themselves sometimes.

Then they'd be interested to hire him all kinds of councilors and security guards so that he doesn't kill himself.

What? And break into his home so he can't?

That'll cost them less money and years of not seeing daylight, so why not.

Because don't you think that in itself is a form of witness intimidation? Won't people be hesitant to volunteer to testify during a lengthy trial if it means a security guard literally watching them sleep and shower for months.

I meant not that the witness would be obligated to accept that, but that a company would be interested to offer to pay for various measures to preserve their health, sanity and all that.

But the claim was that he committed suicide, say you're concerned about the company killing you so you accept their security. Couldn't the security then just have a good reason to be in your house to "find the body" when you "slip in the shower"

You don't get it, his death before giving witness is unconditionally considered a murder by the company.

So then someone else can kill him like others have said. But depending on what is being whistleblowed, someone in the company taking the fall for murder might not be as bad as what could be discovered. Especially if government agencies are included in this.

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Step 1: Short company stocks Step 2: kill witness against the company Step 3: profit.

Just one example of that being a terrible idea

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Or, short of that.. If you're whistleblowing on Boeing, you should go to Airbus and Lockheed and tell them, "it's in your best interest that I stay breathing".

Do not underestimate the level of solidarity rich people will display against anyone who challenges them.

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The day before his testimony. He was 100% assassinated. Too bad Boeing is such a major company. This would have FBI agents crawling all over it if it wasn't a company that can afford to buy every politician in DC.

Idk the DOJ opened a criminal investigation against them but that could just be theater. 100% this man was murdered though dude, no doubt about it. When I read that whole "our thoughts are with his friends and family" I got a chill man that's so evil.

To be fair, they would've said that regardless. Its standard corporate speak.

True, but I get the point. Like it's hard for those of us with souls to comprehend the sheer evil it takes to murder or coerce-to-murder someone's father/husband/brother/friend, and then tell them through your teeth "That's so unfortunate this thing happened to them. Thoughts and prayers."

If this was a Trump administration with Sessions or Barr, nothing would be done. I actually do think Garland's DOJ cares about such corruption, so I'm hopeful this will at least be looked into.

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They could still be crawling over it, hopefully

Yeah I guess they have no reason to divulge active investigations to the public, but yeah, obviously the optics on this are super fucked.

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I'm not going to say that Boeing had this guy directly killed, but I can certainly see them and their legal team explicitly trying to make his life as hellish as possible until he felt that he only had one way out. Legal threats if you stop proceeding with your case, legals threats if you don't, they want a terrible warning for any other whistleblowers.

Isn't that exactly what happened to Aaron Schwartz? Not a whistleblower, but similar tactics

Yes the FBI wanted to make an example out of him for the crime of downloading research papers from a service he had legitimate access to. Even JSTOR thought the prosecution was absurd and didn't want anything to do with it.

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Is this a Russian style self inflicted wound…?

My brother in Freedom Jesus, faking a murder to look like suicide is as American as apple pie!

Hell the most notorious pedophile in history, who definitely had video of the world’s richest men committing statutory rape and assault, killed himself in one of the most secure locations anyone could imagine, surrounded by guards and video cameras! And nobody saw a thing! HA! And we’re all like “well i guess that sordid chapter is over” hahahaha. Oh man. It literally works every. single. time.

The Russians will throw someone out the window or poison them in a very obvious way, the Americans will put two in their head and have it ruled a suicide.

I love the one where the guy “killed himself” by duck taping himself to a lawn chair and then throwing himself in the pool.

No, it's probably more of a mob style self-inflicted wound. Didn't say he shot himself in the head twice and jumped out a window.

Cases like these should be called Russian Suicides.

With how many assassinations the US carries out, I think they deserve to at least be called USicides

How about customers just flat out refuse to fly on Boeing planes?

The fact that several airlines let you filter out plane models indicates people are indeed doing that. Airbus: no fuss; no muss.

At what part of the trip. When boarding? You think the airline will accommodate? You already paid.

You can filter for aircraft used when booking a plane.

That assumes there will always be a good alternative to choose from.

From where I live to go back home to my parents there is exactly one provider that flies directly. All other connections have stop-overs. Not even talking about price difference.

I get wanting to save your time, but if you die there’s no time left to save

I am actually at the point where I will avoid Boeing 737-MAX at booking, ask again at check-in to confirm the plane type, and if I saw one at the gate, I would refuse to board and accept the money as a loss. Unfortunately not everyone can afford re-booking like that. So f*ck Boeing and I just hope that Airbus won't ever be that corrupt (chances are they are or will be at some point).

Pilots should also refuse to fly them.

I mean... It takes a bit to learn how to fly a plane. They wouldn't really want to dispose of that skill and learn to fly Airbus instead.

I'm no pilot, but I can't imagine these particular variants have been around so long for retraining to be a serious issue. Not when mass death is on the line and older, reliable Boeing planes still exist.

I am not sure what you are trying to say exactly, however the re-certification that should be required for the 737-MAX was exactly the reason for introducing the MCAS software to prevent the crew certified for older 737 models from pushing the nose into the ground on take-off. That, together with glossing over the major design change so that no pilot would flag "hey, this is a new plane, we should get a proper new certification for this" contributed to the two crashes, murdering 350something people over profit.

Boeing wanted to sell a new plane model with significantly altered aerodynamic behavior as a "variant" of an existing one so airlines could save cost on not having to re-certify pilots.

I'm saying if the newer, problematic planes aren't going to be forced to ground by regulators, pilots should refuse to fly them. Surely there are plenty of planes still flying built by Boeing before they sold souls. Surely those won't require massive retraining. Fly them instead.

If I learned anything in my time on this planet is that there are far too few people in the world willing to stand up for their principles :(

If you're going to fly Boeing at all, what is the point in avoiding the 737-max?

Because most older Boeing models are actually robust aircraft & when the maintenance is in the hand of a capable airline, there's nothing wrong with them from the perspective of safety. But as Boeing continues to fuck this up, and murder whistleblowers - I doubt there will be Boeing airplanes left to safely board in the future.

The airline will accommodate just fine: “Oh, you don’t want to fly? Too bad, the exit is that way.”

Or refuse to fly all together. Flying is extremely carbon intensive.

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Why don't news organizations address the elephant in the room? They can say there is no evidence of foul play but the circumstances warrant further investigation as his death is quite convenient for Bowing. I don't see how that could be libelous.

Because news organizations no longer do any work investigating, only propagandizing for the sweet greenback$. 💰

They can be sued if they claim Boeing executives murdered a guy unless there are court records showing Boeing executives were convicted for murdering a guy. However, I guarantee you people like Trevor Noah and John Oliver will absolutely run with this bit if they get the chance.

"WhY iSN't ThE MEdiA CoVEriNG tHe NeWs" people scream in the comments of a news feed that alerted them to this exact issue.

That's simply not true. Defamation/libel against a public company requires "actual malice", which essentially means that the news outlet would have to have evidence that what they're saying is not true.

Fox was going to lose to Dominion because they 100% knew they were lying about the company, and there were records proving it. It's not actually common at all for cases regarding defamation against public figures or corporations to go anywhere.

You bringing up the Fox News counter-example and claiming it was a one off is kind of self-awarewolf.

I'm bringing it up because it was a remarkably rare thing that recently happened.

The reason Fox lies 50 times a minute is because defamation is incredibly difficult to prove.

did you even read the comment you're responding to?

Not only did I read it but I answered the question.

You absolutely did not. The question was not: "Why don't news organizations claim Boeing execs murdered a guy...?" The commenter was clearly aware of the problem of libel, which you completely ignored. They asked why news orgs aren't discussing the fact that the death comes at a suspiciously convenient time - because they aren't. This is not the same as claiming that he was murdered by Boeing.

He claimed it shouldn't be libelous and I explained that it would be libelous. You're implying that journalists are somehow dancing around the issue, which is silly because we're all pretty well informed that the whistleblower was probably murdered.

it's not libelous to discuss the elephant in the room. you did not explain anything. you just disregarded the question with your assumption.

If you say a person or entity with a public image did something really bad that they haven't been strictly proven to have done, with exceptions for things such as parody, then that is defamation. So, yes, it can be libelous to talk about the fucking elephant.

wowdaft. it couldn't be more clear that the suggestion is discussing the suspicious nature WITHOUT making direct accusations.

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I'll never fly in a Boeing again after hearing this. Unless the ceo gets arrested 🤔

Kayak lets you search via plane model fyi

thanks for the info about kayak, very appreciated!!

me same, i would never again willingly book a flight with a boeing airplane.

in my mind that B. company got the status of a criminal organization >20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it. back then however the discussions were about computers overriding pilot control, not about a company intentionally risking lives.

Now they seem to me to still refuse to fix the problems and instead rename planes so that one cannot avoid their deathtraps unless not at all flying with their aircrafts. so i choose to only book flights with aviation companies that do not have B. planes at all. I decided to in future rather use a car or boat instead, if only B. planes are available.

i would not be surprised if the current "technical event" would be the actual same cause that "forced the nose down" over 20years ago, to me it sounds exactly like the same until now, it might just luckily have happened by chance high enough in the air so that the "nose forced down by computer" problem could somehow be solved with enough time where they had only seconds in that crash two decades ago.

20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it

Erm. Are you talking about something OTHER than the changed 737-MAX design and the MCAS system? Because those two related crashes happened in late 2018 and early 2019 - 5-6 years ago. Got a link to the >20 years ago incident you are talking about?

The only crash I know of thats similar to what they're talking about happened in an airbus plane, and during landing not takeoff. The pilots tried to pull up on their side sticks to avoid crashing, but the plane ignored the input because it would have overcorrected and caused the plane to stall. As a result they crashed onto the runway.

That isn't to say Boeing doesn't have a history with such things. Look into United Airlines 811 in 1989. Improper design caused a massive chunk of the fuselage to be ripped out in flight, throwing 9 people into the ocean and causing a rapid decompression. Initial investigations said the cause was human error, but the family of one of the victims researched it themselves and found out that wasn't the case.

Can't find an airbus crash on landing with that description - do you have a year, place, or flight number?

And of course, Boeing and Airbus also have had bad design decisions - just think of the A400-M...

Iberia flight 1456

Thanks. Reading up on that however, reads like not so much a negligent design, but a lesson learned from a new scenario that hadn't caused an issue before.

PS: I cringed hard at the use of "male" in the description of the pilot & copilot on the wikipedia page - seems some incel wrote that...

I would've assumed it should have been designed to dampen the input to a point where it isn't dangerous, instead of ignoring it entirely. There could be a reason they didn't do that which I'm not seeing, but that seems like a good idea at first glance.

I agree but we both have the luxury of hindsight. I think it's really difficult to always anticipate all failure scenarios in advance. I am saying that as someone who just discovered had a "bug" in his software discovered that caused a buffer overflow because I didn't anticipate a buffer as small as 32 Kilobytes in a data link that was designed for 32 Megabits per second :)

Not the person you responded to, but they may be talking about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which I believe the FAA grounded (I could be misremembering the John Oliver points about it) after several incidents within the first few months of release.

Wikipedia says the dreamliner had it's first flight only in 2009, so hardly 20+ years ago... I think previous poster was just confusing the very recent 737-MAX accidents with some historical ones.

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what i meant was decades ago, not the "recent" crashes of 2018..

i tried to find it but didn't yet. there are way more plane crashes than i thought i would have to go through..

looking at "new technology" introduced (as it was quite new) i stumbled over this article and remembered that the "three computers voting" (while the pilot may only take place in that voting - as a minority ...) was part of the discussions back then (which is not written in that article however, but i found one piece, yay!):

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19950605&slug=2124705

i feel like i could remember something wrong like it maybe was not a takeoff but possibly a go-around where the crash happened... not sure i won't yet give up searching, but i have to stop for now..

edit: i am not saying it was a 777, i just found a piece of my 20year old puzzle...

went through lots of plane accidents to find the one i think to remember, but had to stop as i do not want to increase fear of flying. however i stumbled about this one, Airbus A320 Air France flight 296 on 26th of June, 1988 which was sort of related as some "security" mechs seemed to have prevented crash prevention there and fired discussions. but this one was earlier and it was not boeing (and it looks like no one tried to cover things). however since it was during an airshow, not a commercial flight, i now figured out that the one i remember could have been a testflight, cargo flight or something else like a flight show as well... not sure if i "can" find it, the little i remember.

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good call on kayak.

just tried it out by excluding MAX models of aircraft and it worked. unfortunately, that severely limits options, but hey, it's possible.

I just looked at a regular domestic Air Canada flight from Pearson to YVR...... $1500 fucking dollars to catch an Airbus over a Boeing. Seems like the demand to not be on a Boeing plane is driving plane tickets into the stratosphere.

That's just air Canada.

Their new motto: 'We're not happy till you're not happy'

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So, the guy was expected to appear in court for thw second round of questioning and when he didn't show up was found dead in his truck in the underground car park of the hotel. Doesn't sound like someone that wanted to end it. Maybe I'm wrong but I wouldn't book a room to go to court and then on a whim decide to end it.

They should investigate the coroner asap.

Sounds like Jeffrey Epsteins coroner.

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This is "falling out of a window or down an elevator shaft in Russia"-level blatant.

This appears very loud and clear to any other potential whistle-blowers.

You forgot blown-up plane. For Boeing it is super easy.

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Weird, but I read this article and before it said specifically that he died from a gunshot wound. Looks like it's been updated (or redacted) to leave that bit out. Originally it said he died from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

So Boeing executives murdered a whistleblower. huh.

Being in Quality Control myself, I've always felt pressure from higher ups around some of our bigger findings. Cool to know if I ever find something too big they'll just straight up murder me.

I've thought about this way too much and if you seriously think you're in danger, there's a few things you can do. Obviously lots of security cameras with local and off-site backups. Then hidden cameras, whatever spy cameras you can find, with an SD card in each. Then you need to create a deadman switch. Something you must interact with at least daily or it automatically uploads all your videos and documents etc everywhere it can, and / or sends them to your lawyer or journalists if you think you can trust them. I err on the side of public release as well because as long as it's in the public eye it will be subject to scrutiny. That's also why I'd start establishing a social media presence. "HI I'm X, I blew the whistle on Y. There's a hearing scheduled for Z and I would like to once again publicly state that I don't have any current medical or mental health issues and I have no plans to ever take my own life. Anyway here's how to make waffles" or whatever.

I've thought about this a lot too and I don't even have a job where I need to worry about it. The best way is really to just stay in the public eye and be as transparent as legally possible. I considered just fucking live streaming most of my life on twitch if I needed too. Car cam, house cam, go pro on my person, etc.

A 24-hour live stream is brilliant.

I'd still do a hidden cam or two in your car and other places you're likely to switch networks and lose your stream for a moment.

Something strange like that happened after that Sri Lankan family was murdered in Ontario. Was referred to as a mass shooting until no, wait, was a knife.

Sometimes reporters get details of the story wrong. I don't know what's so strange about that.

That is perfectly fine, but any corrections or changes should be noted and explained, not quietly changed.

Bit of a lack of professionalism there.

Crime journalists write what the cops say. Blame the source, not the messenger.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

Ah yes the classic suicide by shot to the back.

Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along, and consoom Boeing.

It was a gunshot wound to the head. Its plausible the wound was self inflicted, although its pretty clear Boeing probably did it. They are evil, not stupid.

I'm certainly suspicious, but if you're basing that "probably" on the information provided in this article...well your critical thinking skill leave a lot to be desired.

I think a "probably" is pretty reasonable considering the circumstances. Its a lot less certainty than I'm seeing in the rest of these comments.

I think a “probably” is pretty reasonable considering the circumstances.

No, it's not. It's based on nothing but suspicion. Unless I'm missing something, there is nothing that indicates that this was even a murder, let alone anything linking that murder to Boeing. It's just blind speculation. It's the same shit I deal with constantly with Trump supporters, where their suspicions about the 2016 are more important than actually having the facts to back it up.

At this moment we have no motive for suicide and motive for murder.

What if the dude was so stressed out by all of this he just said fuck it, I'm done, and blew his brains out?

I'm not saying I think this is true any more than I think Boeing had him killed. Just providing it as a plausible motive for suicide to show that we really need more information to be revealed from a proper investigation before we attach ourselves to assumptions.

But we have actual evidence for suicide (coroner report) and none for murder. But sure your ignorance of what's going on in his life trumps actual facts.

I know its speculation, that's why I'm using the word probably. There is a rock solid motive, but no hard evidence. Which is why I'm not going to outright claim they did it. Maybe your definition of probably is different than mine, but to me, it means there is a very real possibility that I'm wrong.

I know its speculation, that’s why I’m using the word probably.

Blind speculation. You have nothing to support the claim. You're just suspicious about it. There is no "probably" here, it just a possibility.

Maybe your definition of probably is different than mine, but to me, it means there is a very real possibility that I’m wrong.

Probably means more likely than not. You have precisely zero to back up your claim. The evidence suggests that Trump probably (i.e. more likely than not) raped Jean Carroll, which is why a jury found him liable for it. If you brought the evidence you have right now that Boeing killed this guy for a civil claim, you would be laughed out of court.

There is no "probably" here, it just a possibility.

Its a possibility that seems very likely, that's what I mean by probably.

If you brought the evidence you have right now that Boeing killed this guy for a civil claim, you would be laughed out of court.

That's very interesting, however, I am not in court.

Its a possibility that seems very likely, that’s what I mean by probably.

So we do have different definitions of probably. Yours just means reasonably possible. Mine actually means probably, which is "Most likely; presumably."

That’s very interesting, however, I am not in court.

I understand that. But you are claiming that it "probably" happened, and I'm pointing out to you that the evidence you've provided wouldn't even come close to be enough to make the claim in court. It's so far from it that you wouldn't even make it to a trial where a jury would then weigh the evidence to determine how likely it is.

One thing I learned from NCIS: "investigate suicides as if they were murders".

Dunno if it was one of the Rules, tho.

Ah yes, "found dead" like the people who reported on the Panama papers "died in car accidents"

And they get away with it because we let them. We have proven time and time again that we'll do nothing, so they'll keep doing it.

No, WE don't let them for forbid them from doing anything.

Those corporate jackoffs are the ones that control everything. All our elections are just for show.

These corporate jackoffs also have names and addresses, just sayin'. They're only as untouchable as we let them be, and they're terrified of the fact that we're waking up to that (hence the bunkers n shit). They're like "Nuh uh" and we're like "Oh ok then" and give them our lunch money, their power is equal to that of a bully making rules on the playground, we just need to grow the fuck up.

The difference between terrorism and revolution is critical mass of supporters. If it was as easy as taking to the streets with guns I imagine more of the left would do it. We only have to look as far back as 2019 to Willem van Spronsen to see you'd likely just die in vain. Until then, train, agitate, and organize.

If it was as easy as taking to the streets with guns I imagine more of the left would do it.

I mean, isn't that how lefty commies defeated the Nazi's? Never said it was easy, but they got there in the end, and there's still more work to be done it would seem. We got numbers on our side, $32.6trillion worth of them wouldn't even fill up a single 737 airplane.

Last week, he gave a formal deposition in which he was questioned by Boeing's lawyers, before being cross-examined by his own counsel.

He had been due to undergo further questioning on Saturday. When he did not appear, enquiries were made at his hotel.

He was subsequently found dead in his truck in the hotel car park.

In case you think we're any better than the Russians.

No, it is not a corporation protecting its bottom line that makes us no better, but the inevitable lack of response from the US "justice" system. Just like with Epstein.

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This is the norm in Russia, it's not in the US. Both sides are not the same. I can't seem to remember the last time any president had someone they didn't like pushed out of a window or had their tea poisoned on the regular. If Trump gets elected obviously that will change but to say that we aren't any better is wild.

Especially after killing political rivals like Navalny (and all the failed attempts). When is the last time we saw that in the US?

Epstein

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Burn one for another dead hero, folks.

What would be the correct expression? Someone has committed this whistleblowers suicide?

Suicide implies that he did it to himself. In the absence of enough evidence to say "murder" it's the best phrase we'll get.

...what the fuck?

First whistleblower "suicide"?

The second I see someone's name next to whistleblower, I know they're on borrowed time, some manage to be left alone, but most don't, that's why we need to keep these people's names and causes alive, we can't let corporations get away with silencing a whistleblower, we must amplify it.

He is the reason some people wants the US to be a bit more like Russia. Yeah, no, this wasn't a suicide, this was to stop the case that he himself had embarked on a long-running legal action on and that he had been in Charleston for legal interviews for. This stops the case in its tracks.

“John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end,” Knowles and his co-counsel Robert Turkewitz said in a statement to TIME. “He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.”

- https://time.com/6900123/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-found-dead-deposition-safety/

Please don't reply if you are just going to spam "BuT sUiCiDe". If that's false, he's just another casualty of Boeing. If that's true, he's just another casualty of Boeing.

Funny how he takes his own life in an hotel car park, and no one hears it. Let me guess, he also happened to buy the gun and get the gun permit the same day ... His anxiety never manifested as suicidal tendencies, and if anything, taking action had decreased it.

Or, this is the reason why the USA already is like Russia... "Suicide by 3 shots in the back then jumped out of the window" kind of scenarios.

Some parts of the USA already are, but in pockets. The USA is definitely an oligarchy at this point, but still not a complete autocracy, and there's still a reasonable amount of trust that an actual investigation will be taking place regarding the circumstances of his death, which means not being able to hire just any sort of hitman for these stints.

Yesterday I've read a joke about something like that exactly about audits and proceedings connected to Boeing's recent accidents.

I thought this is satire first.

"self-inflicted" ahh huuh

He just wandered out to his car and died, bro. In the middle of a deposition. Its actually incredibly normal, bro. Why are you asking all these questions, bro? He just died, okay? Its fine.

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Also found this article with more details but wtf is this website? I've never heard of it? Sketchy? Legit? I have no clue.

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/boeing-whistleblower-found-dead-in-charleston-after-break-in-depositions/

That site also has a 2019 interview with John Barnett. The site is named and the interview is quoted in today's Daily Mail article on the whistleblower's suspicious death.

So, corporate crime reporter appears legit; the whistleblower spoke with them in 2019, and his lawyer did write to them with details.

Thanks. I didn't find much about CCR besides this:

https://archives.internetscout.org/r18210/corporate_crime_reporter

Published since 1986, the Corporate Crime Reporter is a legal newsletter that highlights recent news items about ongoing corporate crime prosecutions, along with featuring interviews with prominent attorneys who work in this rather intriguing field of law practice. The interview section is quite interesting as ...

The right thing to do would be to seize Boeing, take it away from its shareholders, hold and interrogate the major shareholders, and regardless of the outcome of interrogations the company should never return to the public. Either dismantle and sell every pathetic asset, or run it as a public company. This is a no-brainer, they should not be allowed to continue with business as usual even if no one is found guilty or no direct link is established.

When a person is convicted of certain crimes, the government assumes control over their life in the form of imprisonment. Why shouldn't the same happen to corporations that commit serious offenses? Any argument against this could be applied tenfold to the incarceration of citizens, but I suspect that defenders of criminal corporations don't have a consistent view in that regard.

Forget identifying the people responsible, forget pleas that they'll do better, forget fines-- if you demonstrate that you are willing to use your freedom to abuse society, society gets to tell you what to do. Sometimes for a few years, sometimes forever.

You are 100% correct, and this same sentence is justified for countless other evil corporations but will similarly never pass. I honestly think biden is our dead cat bounce and regardless if he wins or not, the decline is just ramping up.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett's passing.

I'm sure they were distraught.

This is something I thought would be on the Onion.

Deeply saddened by such a tragic loss, and we send our condolences to his family.

Meanwhile, Boeing execs

"self-inflicted" wound

Did he shoot himself in the back of the head? Double tap for good measure?

ITT: The equivalent of Trump supporters confusing the fact that they are suspicious that the election was stolen, with actually knowing so.

Well, Boeing is demonstrably willing, even determined, to choose financial short term gain over any amount of human lives or reputation loss. It would be shocking if it was truly an accident that saved Boeing from a second day of testimony right when everything is starting to really fall apart for them, right?

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I'd say it's more like a huge percentage of votes for one candidate got lost in a fire. Sure fires happen, but it was really important that this one should be protected from happening.

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How tall was the self inflicting wound fall? There aren't a lot of tall buildings near Everett.

Maybe it was 3 bullets to the back? He was probably an engineer. Engineers can figure out how to purposely shoot themselves in the back more than 1 time with the same or multiple guns. Some plywood, rope or string, glue gun, and miscellaneous items, that's all you need really...and a gun with bullets. Let's start a project "automated self immolation chair". I'm going to set-up a weekly meeting with you all until a prototype rev A is complete. We'll start this morning with a 4 hour DFMEA followed by a three hour brainstorming session. We'll need a business plan if we want approval for resources. I've just discussed the objective with my boss. She said no, and to take the trash out. And wash the dishes. It was an abrupt end of project but we learned valuable lessons. I'll have a report out before Friday 5pm. We'll be going out for drinks if you want to discuss details. Ah yes! Another successful project completion!

Completely on point. I am an engineer. If I were to self inflict gunshots, I would 100% design a contraption that would shooot multiple times. Need to make sure.

Also need to hide this contraption while I am in the dying process. To make sure people know it was self inflicted.

What kind of ice is there that can hold at least 14ksi during projectile launch? It may have to be reinforced with graphene.

Let’s start a project “automated self immolation chair”

that's just called the electric chair, is it not? Just press the button yourself

Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be electric. We need to discuss the IP in this here electrical seating device you mentioned wherein they have incorporated a single button function for electrically terminating life function. There may be room for a continuation design patent where dismemberment, disembowelment and other dis-x-ments can also be actuated via a single throw single contact latching button. With proper denouncing circuits and or algorithms, we can be sure to only de-live once per period. Anvils are single de-living event devices for example.