Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to his head on the same day he was due to testify against the aircraft manufacturer.
The mysterious incident happened as the company’s stock has nosedived, fuelled by a series of incidents including a door plug which flew off a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5 and a wheel falling off a 777 jet a few weeks later.
This led the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) to investigate and discover “unacceptable” quality control issues.
While Barnett’s death has raised many eyebrows, it is far from the first incident involving the company’s workers.
Here we take a look back at some of Boeing’s biggest scandals.
A disgruntled worker at a Boeing plant told a court that he cut about 70 electrical wires on a $24 million Chinook military helicopter because he was upset about a job transfer.
Matthew Montgomery, 33, pleaded guilty in 2008 to one count of destroying property under contract to the government.
According to federal prosecutors, Montgomery was working his last shift on the Chinook assembly line May 10, 2008 when he severed about 70 electrical wires running together from the cockpit to the main body of an H-47 Chinook.
He was later sentenced to five months in prison and five months in home confinement after telling the judge the tension and tedium of his assembly-line job had gotten to him.
“I know now that a factory environment is not the place for me,” Montgomery said in court.
Almost two dozen past and then-current employees were arrested in a drug bust at a Boeing plant which makes military aircraft in Pennsylvania, with the charges including selling Oxycontin and fentanyl, officials said.
In a major sting, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents uncovered the illegal prescription drug distribution ring at the Ridley Park-based factory, leading to indictments against 23 individuals, a joint statement from the agencies said.
“The defendants in this case are accused of diverting controlled substances and selling them to alleged abusers without any medical supervision,” said DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge, Vito Guarino, in 2011.
In a major sting, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents uncovered the illegal prescription drug distribution ring at the Ridley Park-based factory, leading to indictments against 23 individuals, a joint statement from the agencies said.
The drugs being sold on site at the facility – which builds aircraft including the H-47 Chinook helicopter and the V-22 Ospre – included fentanyl and oxycodone, also known as Oxycontin.
Boeing had brought its suspicions of drug activity to federal law enforcement and the Justice Department said it had cooperated fully with the long-term investigation.
FBI agents used Boeing employees to cooperate in the probe, and those charged were accused of either selling drugs to FBI cooperators or buying placebo drugs from them, officials said.
Boeing commended the U.S. agencies for their “rigorous and thorough investigation.
All 23, including a union chief, had all pleaded guilty by August 2012, according to a report in the Philadelphia Enquirer.
In a damning 2014 video clip, several Boeing employees claimed colleagues were on hard drugs including cocaine and meth while they worked, and raised concerns about the safety of the 787 Dreamliner aircrafts.
Current and retired Boeing employees discussed their worries about quality control with news service Al Jazeera’s investigative TV segment “Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787”.