An engineer who began testifying in a South Carolina court about problems with the quality of the aircraft giant’s planes has been found dead.

According to ABC Newsonline travel booking site Kayak has seen a noticeable increase in recent weeks in the number of users filtering out Boeing aircraft in favor of Airbus when searching for flights.

We suspect this Kayak feature will be in high demand following this week’s aviation accidents:

Events around Boeing this week

— Monday: 737 engine caught fire during flight

— Thursday: 777 lost a wheel after takeoff

— Friday: A 737 skidded off the runway in Houston.

“If you know what’s going on with Boeing and don’t want to fly on these death traps, book your flights on Kayak. They allow you to exclude Boeing flights from your search so you can choose safer planes like Airbus.” believes one of X’s users.

Meanwhile, Airbus is being squeezed by Boeing in the market as the US Federal Aviation Administration has limited production at the troubled planemaker due to quality control issues.

In recent Al Jazeera reportfilmed on a hidden camera at the Boeing plant in South Carolina where the 787 planes are assembled, says workers are reluctant to fly the own planes they make, citing quality control issues.

Poor quality parts, serious problems with oxygen masks

Original of this material

© News Agency “RBC”03/12/2024

Engineer who testified against Boeing found dead

Natalia Anisimova

Former Boeing quality control engineer John Barnett, who repeatedly criticized the company’s manufacturing standards, was found dead in South Carolina, the BBC reports, citing Charleston County authorities.

The body was found in a car in the hotel parking lot; According to the investigation, the 62-year-old man died on Saturday, March 9 from a “self-inflicted” wound.

“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s death and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Boeing said.

In Charleston, an engineer testified in a lawsuit against the company; as the BBC writes, he was interviewed by the aircraft manufacturer’s lawyers. The survey was supposed to continue on Saturday, but Barnett did not show up, after which company representatives contacted the hotel administration.

Barnett worked at Boeing for 32 years. He had been a quality control engineer at the North Charleston plant where the 787 Dreamliner is built since 2010 before retiring in 2017 due to health reasons. In 2019, a man claimed that workers at a South Carolina plant installed substandard parts during assembly and pointed to serious problems with oxygen masks. Boeing denied the allegations, but an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that some of Barnett’s claims were substantiated. Boeing was required to take measures to correct the situation.

The Hill notes that Barnett’s case is not related to the scandal surrounding the Boeing 737 MAX 9. In early January, the emergency exit hatch on the plane of this model, owned by Alaska Airlines, came off during a flight at an altitude of about 5 km, and the crew announced depressurization. The plane made an emergency landing at Portland Airport, no one was injured. The door was later discovered by a local resident in his backyard.

The FAA suspended the operation of some airliners and began inspections; The regulator has barred Boeing from “returning to normal operations” until authorities are satisfied that quality control problems have been corrected. The agency reported in early March that during the audit it had identified numerous violations. The FAA later proposed a new airworthiness directive for some Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, saying that in some cases an “unauthorized roll to the right” could occur during flight, which could result in loss of control of the aircraft.