Boeing 737 Max whistleblower Joshua Dean, 45, dead after sudden illness
Boeing aircraft has died.Joshua Dean, 45, was a former quality auditor for Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan. He worked on the Boeing 737 Max program and filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2023 over improper manufacturing practices he witnessed.
He had been fired months before, allegedly in retaliation for bringing up safety concerns with Spirit management.His death comes two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barrett was found dead of an apparent suicide a day after testifying against the planemaker.Dean died in hospital Tuesday morning after his family says his health deteriorated suddenly. He was in critical condition for two weeks after he started experiencing difficulty breathing.
He tested positive for influenza B and an MRSA staph infection and later developed pneumonia, according to a Facebook post from Dean’s mother.As his condition worsened, he was put on dialysis and had to be transferred to a hospital in Oklahoma City to be hooked up to an ECMO machine, which takes over vital heart and lung functions by pumping blood out of the body to be oxygenated before circulating it back in. Doctors also conducted a CT scan and learned Dean had experienced a stroke.“My son is fighting for his life,” Dean’s mother wrote at the time.
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