Joshua Dean, who worked as a quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems, burst onto the national scene recently when he decided to blow the whistle on troubles with the aircraft components built by his company.
Spirit AeroSystems makes the fuselage for, and does around 70% of the work on, the Boeing 737 airliner. Both companies came under scrutiny on January 5, after a door blew off of 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines while in mid-flight, which forced the plane to make an emergency landing.
Spirit issued a statement saying that its thoughts and prayer were with Dean’s family. It called the news of his sudden death “stunning.”
Dean, a healthy man in his mid-40s, started having trouble breathing a couple weeks ago, according to a report in the Seattle Times. Upon going to see the doctor, he tested positive first for influenza B, and then MRSA which progressed to pneumonia. The infection spread to his whole body and his organs began failing. He was intubated, and then moved from a Wichita hospital to a bigger facility in Oklahoma City. There he was hooke dup to ECMO machine, which takes the load off the heart and lungs by diverting the blood to an external machine which oxygenates and circulates it. The machine is only used in critical situations.
By Tuesday morning, Dean was dead. His most recent work assignment was with Johnson Controls, according to his attorneys. His work as a quality auditor at Spirit came to an end in April 2023, after he filed complaints about mis-drilled holes on a 737 max aft bulkhead, which is important to maintaining cabin pressure. According to a lawsuit brought by Spirit shareholders, the aircraft company failed to heed Dean’s warnings.
Dean was represented by attorneys Brian Knowles and Robert Turkewitz, the same attorneys who represented John Barnett, a retired Boeing veteran who blew the whistle on safety problems with his employer’s aircraft, but died of an apparent suicide on March 9.
