A former Boeing employee known for voicing concerns about the company’s manufacturing standards has been found dead in the United States, the BBC writes

John Barnett worked at Boeing for 32 years before his retirement in 2017.

A few days before his death, he testified in a trial against the company.

Boeing officials said the company was saddened by Barnett’s death. The 62-year-old is believed to have died of “self-inflicted injuries” on March 9 and police have launched an investigation.

Mr Barnett worked for the US airline giant for 32 years until he retired in 2017 due to ill health.

Since 2010, he has been working as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant, where it builds the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used primarily on long-haul routes.

In 2019, Mr Barnett told the BBC that workers were under pressure to deliberately fit non-standard parts onto planes on the production line.

He also said he found serious problems with oxygen systems that caused one in four breathing masks to fail in an emergency.

Shortly after starting work in South Carolina, Barnett also said the plane’s assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised.

In some cases, he said, substandard parts were pulled from bunkers and installed on planes being built to prevent delays on the production line.

Mr Barnett said he alerted managers to his concerns but no action was taken.

Boeing denies these claims. However, a 2017 audit by the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), confirmed some of Mr Barnett’s concerns. Boeing has been ordered to take corrective action.

At the time of his death, Mr. Barnett was in Charleston for legal inquiries in connection with this case.

He was due for further questioning on Saturday, but when he did not show up, the police searched for him at the hotel where he was staying. He was found dead in his car in a hotel parking lot.

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

The FAA said last week that a six-week audit of the company found “several instances where the company failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”