Last year, a former quality manager at Boeing warned that the factory that made the 787 Dreamliner—one of the company’s newer models of airplane—was plagued by shoddy work practices and poor oversight. John Barnett, who had worked for the airplane manufacturer for many years before becoming one of its most outspoken critics, said that Boeing was building the planes with ‘sub-standard’ parts and that its mandate of speed and efficiency was endangering lives. Barnett, who refused to fly on the Dreamliner, was also involved in a legal dispute with the company at the time that he died of an apparent suicide.
Yesterday, the plane that Barnett had warned regulators about crashed in Ahmedabad, India, killing all but one of the passengers. The worst aviation disaster in recent memory, the crash has spurred fresh scrutiny of its controversy-plagued manufacturer. While it will take months to understand what actually caused the crash, if the source of the disaster ends up being a vulnerability in the plane’s technical design, it won’t be particularly surprising. Barnett, whose death sparked conspiracy theories due to his involvement in the legal case against his former employer, was one of a long list of critics who have long expressed concern about the company’s manufacturing practices.
The 787 was launched in 2011, with one of the advertised benefits being that Boeing could manufacture the aircraft more cheaply than its previous models. However, from the get-go, the plane was...
It’s that time of the year again when taxpayers across the country start filing their Income Tax Returns (ITR). But hold on. If you’re all set to hit submit, take a moment and double-check your re...