A former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems who became a whistleblower reportedly died of a sudden illness, his family revealed on Tuesday, becoming the second informant on the aviation giant to pass away suddenly in a few weeks.
The death of Joshua Dean, 45, comes just a couple of months after that of Josh Barnett, who was discovered lifeless after allegedly shooting himself in the head. Dean had accused Spirit of overlooking flaws in the manufacturing of the 737 MAX, a model whose image has been damaged by a recent string of accidents and safety problems.
According to a December 2023 complaint cited by NPR in January, Dean, a quality auditor at Spirit at the time, had reported inadequate standards and the existence of an “excessive amount of defects” at a Boeing production unit in Wichita, Kansas, back in October 2022.
An experienced mechanical engineer, Dean had worked for Spirit from March 2019 until May 2020, when the complaint claims he was one of many employees let go by the corporation amid mass layoffs. In late May 2021, he rejoined Spirit as a key quality auditor for product and process verification (PPV). Later on, he rose to the position of level 2 stress engineer, but the corporation eventually ended his employment in late April 2023.
Dean reported to management in October 2022 what he believed to be significant production flaws, but he said that nothing was done about it. Ten months later, in August 2023, independent reporting disclosed the very same problems Dean had raised, hinting that Spirit had “hidden” them from investors.
The whistleblower alleged that the company had fired him in retaliation for reporting the defects at the Wichita plant using a “false justification,” namely the inability to detect a manufacturing flaw in the fittings that attach the vertical tail fin to the fuselage.
Dean’s aunt and sister shared the news of his sudden death on social media on Tuesday. His mother revealed on Facebook that he had a stroke after getting an MSRA infection and that he had pneumonia in April. Dean “had been in good health and was noted for having a healthy lifestyle,” according to The Seattle Times, but he passed away from “a sudden, fast-spreading infection.”
