Add Category
It was 4am in Charleston, South Carolina when Brian Knowles made the call.
After phoning several times, he finally got through.
"I've got some news about John," he said.
Picking up the phone from a contact at seven o'clock on a Sunday evening in Melbourne, Australia, isn't a regular occurrence for a journalist. But this wasn't a regular call.
For the past seven years Knowles had been the lawyer for 62 year old John Barnett, a former Boeing employee and whistleblower who had for years raised safety concerns about planes being built in the company's factories where he worked for over three decades.
His client was in the middle of giving evidence for a lawsuit against Boeing that was years in the making and finally set to begin. The finish line was in sight, his lawyers said, and John was "in good spirits".
Brian Knowles inhaled deeply before he broke the news that John had died.
"They found him in his truck. I don't know what to say. I've never experienced anything like this in my life," he said. Another long silence followed.
Earlier on Saturday, the lawyer explained, John was due to appear for the third day of his deposition — the first stage of a trial in the US legal system where parties give evidence and are cross-examined — but he never turned up that morning.
His legal team called but it went straight to voicemail. Knowles's co-counsel, lawyer Rob Turkewitz, then phoned the Holiday Inn where their client was staying during the deposition in the US state of South Carolina. The hotel staff went looking for him, and then gravely told the lawyers they would have to get police to call them back.
"We were in a state of shock," he said, "because you don't know at that point what's happening, you just know something is not right at all."
The lawyers decided to get in a car and head to the hotel themselves. By the time they got there police had found John in his truck in the parking lot with what the County Court later said appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"He was such a great guy," Brian Knowles said. "He was more than our client, he was a friend."
"He was just trying to get the word out and do the right thing. But he was under a lot of pressure. He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety."
'If I can save one life, then this is all worth it'
John Barnett first spoke to the ABC in 2020 when he made shocking allegations that Boeing was cutting corners on the production line and putting passengers at risk by ignoring defects in a rush to get aircraft out the door and meet deadlines.
In the months after the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 737 MAX plane the company was in crisis as the two tragedies put it under intense public scrutiny. John decided to speak out as he believed the allegedly lax safety culture that he saw develop at the company he once loved had contributed to the tragedies.
He was frustrated, too, as he had raised the alarm many times before during his three decades working as a quality manager for the plane maker. He eventually filed a complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and after he retired he filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing in 2017 alleging they retaliated against him for reporting problems. The FAA investigated and substantiated some of John Barnett's claims.
John had what Australian ears might describe as a 'southern drawl' (he probably found the Aussie accent very amusing too) and was always extremely polite, helpful, gentle in nature and easy to laugh but very strong in his convictions.
"This is very critical stuff," he said in January of this year.
"It's why I want to talk to you, you know. People's lives are on the line and I think it's very critical.
"And if I can save one life, then this is all worth it. And I've been fighting this for 12 years now. So hopefully it does some good."
When asked if this had become something of a life's mission or purpose he replied: "Yes, it's my purpose, absolutely."
In his first interview since John Barnett's death, Brian Knowles said his client felt "a duty to speak out" and the thought that the issues he allegedly witnessed on the factory floor could lead to passenger injury or death kept him up at night.
"He felt like if he did not speak out, these issues would not get looked at and would not be corrected and that could pose a potential threat to passengers down the road, which weighed heavily on him," Knowles said.
He said the former Boeing quality manager was frustrated when his concerns that he raised repeatedly with the plane maker were not addressed.
"I mean, these guys weren't putting together kitchen tables … safety and quality in aviation is something that should be taken very seriously," Knowles said.
John Barnett worked on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (the same model of plane involved in the incident this week on a flight between Sydney and Auckland) but he feared the culture that he said prioritised profit and production speed over quality and safety had implications for planes beyond the model he worked on.
"This is a Boeing issue, not a 737 issue," he said when we last spoke over a video call in January.
"The Boeing culture is the root cause.
"In my opinion, Boeing needs a reckoning from the top down."
"I was shocked that that happened," he said in response to January's Alaska Airlines incident, where a door plug fell off a plane mid-flight.
"But then I got angry. I was pretty mad because there's really no excuse for that to happen."
Boeing has in recent months ramped up its efforts to address safety and quality concerns, holding 'quality stand downs' at its factories and in a statement said it was saddened to hear of John Barnett's death.
The news of his death this week made global headlines due to John's prominence as a whistleblower and the timing of his passing, with speculation and innuendo swirling around what some news outlets and commentators described as suspicious circumstances.
Local police say the investigation into his death and its circumstances is continuing.
A man with 'a strong sense of integrity'
Known as "Swampy" to his friends, in a nod to his swamp-filled home state of Louisiana in the US, John Barnett joined Boeing in the 1980s and felt proud to work at a company he respected for a job he loved.
However in the later years of his 32 year tenure at Boeing, he became disillusioned with changes at the company following a corporate merger which he detailed in interviews with the ABC.
In January of this year he told the ABC it was very tough watching Boeing change from a company he loved to one with the problems he allegedly witnessed.
"It absolutely breaks my heart," he said.
In an interview with the ABC this week, Brian Knowles described his client as an "honest, open and sincere" man.
"You can tell he really cared about the cause and the mission that he was on, which was not a self fulfilling mission but a mission to bring the serious safety concerns he had raised to the attention of the flying public," he said.
Despite his strong sense of justice, Knowles said John was "modest and low key" — "the spotlight is not something he sought out".
"John has a strong sense of integrity, as well. And when folks have a strong sense of integrity, that drives them to do the right thing. It's hard for them not to do the right thing."
John's wife passed away in late 2022, but he had a large extended family and enjoyed spending time with his nieces, nephews and other family members.
'He paid the highest price you could pay'
While John was driven to speak up and blow the whistle he paid a "high price" to do so, Brian Knowles said.
"He paid the highest price you could pay — he paid with his life," he said.
"He had been at Boeing for 30 years. So it was a company he loved. But he didn't love what was happening the last few years he was there. And it cost him his job. And then it ultimately cost him years of unneeded stress, reliving his job, which ultimately cost him his life.
"He was a light, a shining light, I would say, not only for the aviation community, but just the world community, for human kind."
The former Boeing worker's lawyers Brian Knowles and Rob Turkewitz told the ABC they planned to continue the legal case that's under way despite his death.
"The family wants to see through what John started. And I believe John would want them to as well."
While John's fight to have his concerns addressed took its toll, the collective pressure on Boeing following several safety incidents has led to a raft of investigations and actions from regulators in the US, including a recent FAA finding of "multiple instances where the company allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements".
When John and I last spoke in January he was preparing for this month's deposition, the first legal steps of his lawsuit against Boeing which was set to finally be heard in court in June, after seven years.
"If you're not doing anything in June, give me a call up, I'll fill you in," he told me with a chuckle.
"It should be enlightening."
A funeral was held for John Barnett Saturday in Louisiana.