Joshua Dean, a former Spirit AeroSystems employee who accused the Boeing supplier of ignoring defects in the production of the 737 MAX, has died after a short fight with “a sudden, fast-spreading infection”, family members and his lawyer have confirmed.
According to Dean’s mother, her son was "fighting for his life" after contracting pneumonia and suffering a stroke following a methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection.
After Spirit fired Dean in April 2023, he filed a complaint with the Department of Labor claiming that his termination was in retaliation for raising concerns related to aviation safety.
The 45-year-old died less than two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, 62, was found dead from what South Carolina authorities described as an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
His lawyers said Barnett had been in the midst of giving depositions arguing that Boeing retaliated against him for complaints about safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The police investigation into Barnett’s death is still underway.
In one of the latest incidents, around 50 people were injured when a Boeing 787 Dreamliner operated by the Chile-based LATAM Airlines experienced a "technical problem" en route from Australia's Sydney to New Zealand's Auckland in March.
In January, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in the US after a door panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight. Similarly, in that same month, an oxygen leak was discovered on board a Boeing 737 that was scheduled to transport US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the Davos World Economic Forum.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a new Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed off the coast of Indonesia. Six months later, 157 people lost their lives when another 737 MAX 8 crashed just minutes after takeoff from Ethiopia. Both fatal disasters were linked to poorly designed cockpit software. The 737 MAX line was subsequently grounded for 20 months across the globe, and cost Boeing more than $20 billion in legal settlements.