Another BOEING Whistleblower DIES; Joshua Dean, 44, 2nd Dead In 2 Month

a Boeing whistleblower who alleged

Spirit leadership had ignored

manufacturing defects on the 737 Max has

suddenly died this is the second Boeing

whistleblower to have died in the last

two months as the company has come under

increased scrutiny The Seattle Times

first reported that Joshua Dean a

quality auditor at supplier Spirit Aeros

systems died Tuesday at just 45 years

old from a fast spread infection Dean

had previously filed a complaint with

the Federal Aviation Administration

alleging there was quote serious and

gross misconduct by senior quality

management of the 737 production line

Dean was laid off last year and filed a

complaint with the Department of Labor

alleging that his termination was

retaliation for raising concerns about

the company's manufacturing plant the

news comes as journalist and activist

Corey Doo reports that in a non-union

shop in Charleston South Carolina where

going 787 Dreamliner is manufactured

there's a cage full of defective parts

that have been pulled from production

because they are not airworthy drro

reports that hundreds of those parts

were secretly pulled from that cage and

installed on operating aircraft and

other airline news lawmakers Advanced a

bill that could undermine Biden's

promise of automatic refunds on canceled

or delayed flights according to new

reporting by the lever for context the

Biden Administration announced a new

rule last week the promise if Airlines

cancel or significantly delay flights

passengers will automatically be given

their money back without having to go

through the cumbersome process of

requesting it now just days later though

four members of Congress Who oversee

Aviation policy started advancing

legislation that could potentially

reimpose the cumbersome process on

Passengers The Catch these lawmakers for

the six largest Congressional recipients

of campaign cash from the airline

industry in the current election cycle o

lever the lever names of the lawmakers

Republican senator Ted Cruz Democratic

senator Maria canwell Democratic

representative Rick Larsson and

Republican representative Sam Graves a

bipartisan effort there as always look

exactly the news that Biden had managed

to do something that was just good news

for consumers not having us be hamstrung

by corporations and having to jump

through all these hoops to get

reimbursed for when the airline messes

up and causes some delay in our flight

plans was the kind of frankly basic

populist program that I think could

really help a candidate who wasn't quite

as mired in the mck as Joe Biden is

generate some positive Goodwill in the

public now it seems like that's not even

going to happen specifically because of

the lobbying efforts of the airline

industry capturing enough members of

Congress to try to overturn this basic

Common Sense sort of a rule what do you

make about the death of yet

another whistleblower type person um

frustrated former employee obviously

losing your job is a is a difficult um

experience that can exacerbate your you

know bad Health outcome something like

that so maybe it's just a coincidence

but obviously we talked about the um

serious to many uh people circumstances

of the death of the other whistleblower

who uh believed to have killed himself

yes so and this is what Cory do was

writing about and I strongly encourage

people to read this entire article so

the the allegation here is that there

was a cage of parts that had been marked

as defective they the when when parts

are pulled from a plane and put into

this cage they're permanently marked so

there can be absolutely no confusion and

they will not be reintegrated into

Airline shouldn't they just throw those

away what this what this well that's a

really good question what uh Corey uh

runs through in this piece is how the

culture of Boeing shifted radically when

it merged with uh McDonald Douglas in

the late 90s uh was known for its

culture at that Aviation firm of being

extremely um driven by pure Financial

motives whereas Boeing had historically

been known for having really high

quality engineers and making really high

quality planes Donald Douglas o

ownership was very frustrated with it

with this and apparently we're calling

all of these very U knowledgeable and

capable Engineers um you know H hyper

talented a-holes or something like that

and wanted to get rid of them and was

frustrated by the fact that they kept

gumming up their ability to to Simply

use the you know prioritize the profit

motive over safety or quality okay cut

two that you know that that's the that's

the circumstances you're cut to now we

have this big cage of parts that are

supposed to be offloaded forever one of

the things that the new Boeing was

managed to do is to convince the

government that it should do its own

quality inspections not have it

outsourced to the FAA at that point

you're basically in charge of reviewing

your own checking your own work which an

institution like the the new culture of

Boeing in the new culture of Boeing is

obviously going to lead to people

cheating now here's where they messed up

the last whistleblower the one who's

alleged to have killed himself um uh

John Barnett who is nicknamed apparently

was swampy and he's referred to swampy

as swampy throughout uh uh Cory's

piece was one of the people who was was

assigned to do this checking and he was

not corrupt he was part of the Boeing

Old Guard so when he was Raising red

flags about these kinds of things there

was this enormous amount of push back he

was fired and cut to now we know that

he's being uh alleged to have killed

himself in the car but one of the

discoveries was that the parts that were

discarded and had big permanent red

marks of them ended up integrated into

God knows how many air air uh planes

that are currently in the sky right now

that is what's going on at boing this is

a huge bombshell realization and safety

and profits should not necessarily be

intention if the company is not shielded

from liability protection or like you

know in a in a purely Market operating

system if the product the plane whatever

is being delivered

is there's an incentive to have it be

nicer safer better more efficient so

that you want to fly on those planes or

people or the airlines want to buy those

planes or use those planes all all of

that stuff there's a market incentive

but if there's artificial

intervention that prevents uh an an

airline or the manufacturer of the

airplane from that Shields them from the

from the harms associated with having

sold people to a defective product then

you end up which is exactly what happens

in the airline industry that I mean

we're describing the total capture by

people in a regulatory sense in an

accountability sense then you get

distorted incentives and you get well we

can continue making defective planes and

we're not going to suffer any

consequence from it because what can

anyone do about it well corporate

corruption and the corruption of our po

of our politicians is certainly an issue

but the fact that there is no

alternative for the consumer because

it's Monopoly is also a really big

problem Boeing is the last American

plane manufacturer there's nowhere else

to go um and the inment of Boeing and

the government is so complete that you

do get the situation where of course

you're going they're very rich they're

very powerful they can buy off

politicians but also the government has

entangled itself in an investment and

Boeing providing it with a much needed

resource not just commercial planes but

military planes as well so there's a lot

going on here and I think people should

be raising questions about why it is

that these mergers were all owed to

happen to completely diminish the

ability for consumers to have real

Choice here um but moreover to your

point about um if the if the airline

companies were forced to internalize

their cost then they would be

incentivized to be Sav it's a good point

but the problem is that there is no

actual efficiency in the market when you

are making assessments about what the

value of a life is that's incredibly

subjected and what ends up happening is

courts don't ever penalize companies

sufficiently to make it not simply worth

their while to let people die and then

recoup you're not going to get a court

saying a human life is worth however

many billions of dollars it would take

for one of these airline companies to

actually change its Behavior I mean the

courts have said it's worth what 14

million or something like that that's

the number people I mean it depends on

they base it on your earning potential

and things like that so it varies from

person to person it's a cruel thing to

have to estimate but one of the problems

is and why some um law and economics

folks uh like a professor that I had in

fact in law school push for stricter

liability standards is because one it's

difficult often times to prove liability

and cause causation in the first place

and many people get off the hook that

way that's what happens with a lot of

these environmental cases right look at

East Palestine if someone gets cancer 10

years from now how can they really prove

that it's from something that happened

as opposed to the fact that cancer just

happens to folks sometimes yeah um so

that's a little different than the door

breaking off the plane and getting

sucked out of it sure but also there's

Al you know they can say I I did the

review I checked I followed all of the

rules and in terms of the now internal

Boeing checks that they're obliged to do

for safety so we if we if you follow the

rules this is part of what the

perniciousness around some of these hi

programs are they're not there to

actually create equality in the

workplace they're there to have

something that the companies can say I

checked this list off so you can't say I

was actually being discriminatory I did

everything I was supposed to do under

the law um so yeah a lot a lot of red

flags going off here I'm really grateful

for the lever to be continuing to cover

this and including specifically the um

Congressional corruption angle because

the names of the people that are

directly involved in doing something

like unwinding a really good finally

good policy from Joe Biden make it

easier for you to be reimbursed when you

have a flight canceled on you um they

can't even let us have the good small

things more Rising right after this

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