A Boeing whistleblower who flagged safety issues with the 737 Max jets has unexpectedly died at 45, Dailymail.com reported.
Second Boeing whistleblower dies: Joshua Dean’s allegations against Spirit AeroSystems
Joshua Dean passed away in the hospital on Tuesday due to a sudden illness, according to his family on social media.
According to a December 2023 lawsuit mentioned by NPR in January, Dean, who was a quality auditor at Spirit, had pointed out that the standards were lax and there were “an excessive amount of defects” at a Boeing manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas, as far back as October 2022.
He first worked at Spirit between March 2019 and May 2020, but was let go during mass layoffs at the company, according to the lawsuit. He rejoined Spirit in late May 2021 as a product and process verification (PPV) core quality auditor and later became a level 2 stress engineer. However, his contract was terminated by Spirit in late April 2023.
In October 2022, Dean raised concerns with management about what he believed to be serious manufacturing defects, but he claimed that his warnings were ignored. The lawsuit alleges that Spirit “concealed” the problems raised by Dean from investors until they were disclosed by independent reporting in August 2023, which was nearly 10 months after he first reported them.
Earlier this year, Dean told NPR “I think they were sending out a message to anybody else. If you are too loud, we will silence you,” he said.
Joshua had claimed that Spirit was overlooking defects in manufacturing the 737 MAX, a plane series that crashes and safety problems have plagued in recent years. Since then, Boeing’s reputation has taken further hits from safety-related issues, leading to more negative headlines. A recent poll suggests that a majority of Americans would even be willing to pay extra to avoid flying on Boeing aircraft, Newsweek reported.
Dean is the second Boeing whistleblower to die unexpectedly; John Barnett, who was found dead less than two months ago, reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to South Carolina authorities.
The Boeing whistleblower’s sudden passing could refocus attention on Boeing, which has been facing greater scrutiny from regulators and airlines, especially since an emergency exit door blew off a Boeing 737 Max while in flight after taking off from Portland International Airport in January.
