Joshua Dean, Boeing whistleblower who alleged defects in 737 MAX planes were ignored, dies

Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, died on Tuesday after struggling with a sudden, fast-spreading infection. He was 45 and had been critically ill for the past two weeks.

According to Dean’s family, he had been in good health and was noted for having a healthy lifestyle, a report with The Seattle Times said.

He was one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX.

Dean was hospitalised after he experienced breathing issues. He was intubated and developed pneumonia and then a serious bacterial infection, it said.

He was airlifted from Wichita to a hospital in Oklahoma City as his condition deteriorated and was put on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine.

(ECMO is a form of extracorporeal life support, providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of oxygen, gas exchange or blood supply to sustain life.)

The report also said Dean was heavily sedated and put on dialysis. Later, a CT scan indicated he had suffered a stroke.

By the end, doctors were considering amputating both hands and both feet, it said.

Dean, a mechanical engineer, began working at Spirit in 2019. He was laid off the following year following pandemic-related job cuts and returned to Spirit in May 2021 as a quality auditor.

In October 2022, Dean said he found a serious manufacturing defect: mechanics improperly drilling holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the MAX. When he flagged this issue with management, he said nothing was done.

Boeing whistleblower John “Mitch” Barnett, who was found dead in an apparent suicide, worked as Dean’s colleague.

At the time of his death, Barnett was in the midst of giving depositions alleging Boeing retaliated against him for complaints about quality lapses.

DEAN’s CLAIMS

According to the report, in October 2022, Dean said he found a serious manufacturing defect: mechanics improperly drilling holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the MAX. When he flagged this issue with management, he said nothing was done.

Focused on those defects, he said he missed during that same audit, a separate manufacturing flaw in the fittings that attach the vertical tail fin to the fuselage. When that was discovered in April and caused a delivery pause at Boeing’s Renton plant, Dean was fired.

Then in August, Spirit announced the discovery of improperly drilled holes in the MAX’s aft pressure bulkhead, a flaw that was present in MAXs built as early as 2019. This caused another delivery halt in Renton.

With that discovery, Dean filed a safety complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

He said Spirit had used him as a scapegoat and had lied to the FAA about the aft pressure bulkhead defects.

In November, the FAA sent Dean a letter stating that it had completed an investigation of the safety issues he had flagged. The letter cloaks the outcome though it seems to confirm that his allegations had substance.

The same month, Dean filed his aviation whistleblower complaint with the Department of Labor, alleging wrongful termination and “gross misconduct of senior level Spirit AeroSystems Quality Managers.”

That case was still pending.

After he left Spirit, Dean took a job for a short time at Boeing Wichita, then left to work for another company.