Boeing Employees Allege Corporate Mandates Threatened Passenger Lives. Now, They Want Justice

On the morning of Saturday, March 9, 2024, John “Swampy” Barnett was late.

A one-time quality engineer for airplane designer and manufacturer Boeing, Barnett was a whistleblower and had filed a lawsuit accusing his former company of retaliation and a hostile work environment. The Louisiana native was staying in Charleston, South Carolina, where he and his attorneys were in the midst of a deposition with Boeing lawyers. The day before, Barnett had answered questions for a full seven hours and had asked for a break. He agreed to return the next morning. But when his attorneys Rob Turkewitz and Brian Knowles called his hotel, staff found Barnett deceased in his truck with a gunshot wound to the head — sparking months of speculation on the nature of his death. (His death would later be ruled a suicide.)

Barnett was a key contributor to the 2022 Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing , which investigated the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, both Boeing 737 Max planes. The documentary detailed how Boeing’s desire to compete in the market with Airbus incentivized upper management to push production faster without adequate quality control.

Now, director Rory Kennedy is digging even deeper into the story. Released Tuesday on Netflix, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing explores the company’s public promises following the two fatal crashes and interviews a group of whistleblowers who all claim that behind closed doors, Boeing remained focused on profit over safety. The documentary also includes never-before-seen interviews recorded during Barnett’s depositions.

No one from Boeing participated in the documentary, but the company said in a statement to filmmakers that it maintains that their standards have risen following lawsuits, whistleblower reports, and several highly publicized congressional hearings. “The allegations in this film have been widely reported over the years,” the statement reads. “Some remain unfounded claims to this day while others are issues that Boeing thoroughly addressed to continues to improve upon.” They also noted that they introduced a new Values and Behaviors program. Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Kennedy told People that she was inspired to make the documentary after Barnett’s death and a recent spate of public Boeing incidents, including the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in Jan. 2024, where an incorrectly secured door plug blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9. (No one was killed, but several passengers were injured.) In the wake of his death, numerous additional whistleblowers stepped forward.

“Around that time, my friend John Barnett, who had been a whistleblower and who I had interviewed for Downfall, had died while testifying about what he had seen with Boeing. That was really the thing that compelled me more than anything to make this film,” she said.