BOEING whistleblower Joshua Dean has died following a sudden illness, his family have confirmed.
Dean was an employee of Spirit AeroSystems who claimed he was fired after alerting people to the Boeing supplier’s negligence in the production of the 737 MAX.
The 45-year-old who worked as a quality auditor, flagged poor production standards at the Witchita, Kansas plant which allegedly saw defects ignored.
In a Facebook post on Friday, Dean’s mother said that her son had contracted an MRSA infection causing pneumonia and a stroke.
She said that her son was “fighting for his life.”
Dean’s aunt Carol Parsons has since confirmed his death two weeks after he was declared to be in a critical condition despite having previously been in good health.
“It was brutal what he went through…heartbreaking,” she told The Seattle Times.
His Lawyer Brian Knowles called his death a “loss to the aviation community and the flying public.”
Dean filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration claiming “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at the Spirit plant.
The company then fired him in April 2023 and he claimed that this was a result of raising his concerns.
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“He possessed tremendous courage to stand up for what he felt was true and right and raised quality and safety issues,” Knowles told Al Jazeera.
“Aviation companies should encourage and incentivize those that do raise these concerns.
“Otherwise, safety and quality are truly not these companies’ top priorities.”
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Emma Crabtree
