John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

  • gradyp@awful.systems
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    I am not a conspiracy theorist. Reality is trying it’s damnedest to make me one.

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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      Eh. There will always be real conspiracies and then…lizard people conspiracies.

      This shit right here? yeah…they killed him. 100%. No doubt in my fucking mind.

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        I mean, he was old…people die—

        It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

        oh shit they totally fucking killed him

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          Not sure what to make of this chart except that a few items are misplaced imo and I agree conspiracy shit is an alt right pipeline in most cases. Maybe it wasn’t always but whatever.

          Anyhow.

          I haven’t followed up on the news. But there sure wasn’t much available yesterday. So as far as actual reliable evidence we the public have little.

          The guy being dead with an apparent self inflicted wound (as BBC and others said) or gunshot (as Corp Crime Reporter said) during whistleblower court proceedings against a giant company is consistent with suicide from:

          • Stress of the case or from blackmail
          • Stress from something totally unrelated.
          • Some other cause (depression, terminal illness…)

          It is also consistent with:

          • murder made to look like suicide to silence his further testimony and dissuade others

          Any of these is certainly plausible at least. As is Epstein being murdered. Actually, that one is more plausible, given the few suspicious coincidences and the sheer number of people who wanted his secrets to stay that way. Whereas extra-terrestrial UFOs aren’t all that plausible based on our current body of scientific knowledge.

          • xapr@lemmy.sdf.org
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            I agree with pretty much everything you’ve written. The only point I would like to make is that the section where the UFOs sits is the “We Have Questions” section, which is between the “Things That Actually Happened” and “Unequivocally False But Mostly Harmless” sections. I interpret this section as containing things that cannot (as of 2021) be conclusively shown to be true or false. Also note that they’re not even saying ET UFOs, but just UFOs. I think the flying saucer is just for visual flair. If I recall correctly, the person who designed this is/was an actual graphic designer.

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              Lol, they mustn’t be a great one, because their design seems to have led at least one of y’all to interpret the labels as denoting for the category below, rather than upper/lower bounds between two categories. i.e. things in the blue category above the “speculation line” label are speculative but not yet “leaving reality”

        • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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          Epstein didn’t kill himself though. The circumstances where above the level of questioning, there were cameras turned off and he was supposedly on suicide watch.

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            As I much as I also believe that, there is no hard evidence (that we know of) that he didn’t kill himself. I think that’s why it’s in that section. The suspiciousness of it is through the roof, but we can’t prove it.

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                Right, the chart is far from perfect, but they just grouped them both under the “we have questions” section. We have lots of unresolved questions about Epstein’s death, we have lots of unresolved questions about UFO sightings.

                • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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                  No, I understand we have questions but explaining epstein requires a couple of details, while UFOs require new laws of physics.

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      It’s possible it was stress from the litigation. In fact, if you don’t specify whose stress, I’d almost guarantee it.

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      There are circumstances where conspiracy the likeliest explanation.

      This is one of those.

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      If it actually happened, it’s just a “conspiracy,” not a “conspiracy theory.”

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        This isn’t proof. That’s the crazy part. I hear ya. I’m with ya. I don’t see anything that is concrete physical evidence to tie it all together. As of now.

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          I agree, I just was making a joke. It’s a conspiracy until you realize it’s a fact. MK-ULTRA, Government spying on you (which time? ) , Big tobacco hiding that cigerettes cause cancer, Stacks of ET games are buried in New Mexico, even dark stories like the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments were all conspiracy theories at one time. Sadly they all turned out to be true.

          • cm0002@lemmy.world
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            There’s also the conspiracy theory of conspiracy theories that the government actually likes and even spreads conspiracy theories so that the real ones get lost in the noise and written off by the general public as “just another loony conspiracy theory”

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              I like that one because I absolutely don’t like it, but it’s hard not to like and think that it’s worth being a likable conspiracy theory.
              And that’s the problem with conspiracy theories, you like to like them and then you can’t be sure.

              It’s just like that sometimes.

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            Very few conspiracies are as dark and terrifying as (checks notes) Atari games buried in the desert.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        A conspiracy is when a group plans to do something unlawful. So if it’s proven true it’s still a conspiracy. It just stops being a theory.

        • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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          A “theory” is a collection of information we currently understand to be true.

          The term “conspiracy theory” is a misnomer that should be correctly expressed as “conspiracy hypothesis”. But that’s just a theory.

        • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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          I think the confusion arises from the secrecy part. A conspiracy is understood to be a secret unlawful activity, especially of subversive nature. When it’s not secret anymore is it still conspiracy? or is it just organised crime? I know it feels just pedantic, but this is why the media abuses words to steer collective opinion. Nowadays you can just say something is a conspiracy and people will believe it’s fake without recourse.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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            I was just being kind of funny. Language is weird and I’m pretty sure that the word conspiracy is headed through the change to mean “Crazy people think this thing is true”

            • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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              Then we need to find another word to express when people gets together to do shady shit, which happens more often than not.

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                No arguments here. I’d like to be able to differentiate between people going shady shit and flat earth believers.

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        That’s the most annoying misunderstanding. A conspiracy is still a conspiracy when you prove it happened/it’s happening. Conspirators remain conspirators, which means they were working together to do something illegal in secret. Ok, so now it’s not secret anymore, but they still conspired.

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      The Gulf of Tonkin incident being created by the US was a conspiracy theory until it wasn’t.

      Not every “conspiracy theory” is wrong. Sometimes people in charge are actually trying to cover something up. It’s not insane to be skeptical of an official line until it’s backed up with proof.

      Lizard people, however, don’t exist.

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        My comment was meant to be tongue in cheek but you pretty much nailed the message I’m after. Don’t jump to the conspiracy conclusion but you have to have something wrong with your brain if this doesn’t at least tickle your skeptic gland.

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    He was staying at a hotel out-of-state while giving evidence against Boeing.
    He was found dead in his car in the hotel parking lot from a ‘self-inflicted wound’.

    There’s really no other way to look at it logically than he was murdered by Boeing. Nothing else adds up.

    • deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      He wasn’t even done giving the deposition that he literally volunteered to give…

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          I don’t know what you were trying to achieve beyond publicly announcing you’re a petty, boring person.

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          Did he not literally volunteer?

          I mean, I get it, I’m sick of “literally” meaning “figuratively”, and I’d die on that hill with you, but this is the dumbest possible time to make that stand. In this case “literally” just means “literally”.

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            That was indeed a perfectly cromulent use of “literally”.

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          Literally has been used as an intensifier for over 200 years. The Oxford English Dictionary includes a definition of literally meaning “figuratively”. Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain all used it that way in their writing.

          So until you write something as well respected and enduring as Sanditon, The Great Gatsby, Tom Sawyer, or Ulysses and collect your mother fucking Nobel prize in literature, please choke on a literal dick you confidently incorrect fuckwit.

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            In this case literally literally did mean literally, though, not figuratively. Which makes the fuckwit even more incorrect.

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            Wondering if they historically used it more as in a ‘literarily’ sense and with license

            Evolving language and all that

            (I’m not trying to argue anything, just musing)

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            I don’t care what justification you throw out. Misuse of literally drives me figuratively insane!

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          i’m literally sorry that you literally don’t know standard english my guy, i literally don’t know what to literally say to you 😭

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      I mean, I think the logical thing to do is wait until the evidence comes out and we know for sure. It’s entirely possible he was under a lot of stress from all this and did kill himself. Now, I don’t deny that it’s a HUGE. FUCKING. CONICIDENCE. but those do happen from time to time. Its also a hell of a story, good-guy whistleblower murdered by greedy multinational aerospace company and defense contractor…during an election year…if you wrote the script nobody would buy it.

      Let’s be suspicious, but not jump to conclusions.

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        Jesus, do you think maybe they’re trying to run out the clock too? Who wants to bet that a certain CEO is angling for a political position within a certain potential administration? Perhaps head of the FAA?

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      Look, I’m not gonna say Boeing did it. Though if they did, I’d bet money they drove.

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      An investor could’ve threatened his family? (So not directly Boeing)

      If he got a bunch of hate online, or had crippling anxiety about the testimony he still had to give? I mean you could even speculate he thought he would be killed someday, so he took it into his own hands.

      (Please note the above is all BS!)

      I would argue the jury is still out and that we may never know.

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        Direct involvement might be a question still. But general involvement is absolute. If Boeing wasn’t so shitty he almost assuredly would still be alive.

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          I suppose even if nobody ever said a word to him you could make that argument. No poor business practices = no testimony = no car in a hotel parking lot.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        An investor could’ve threatened his family? (So not directly Boeing)

        Or somebody involved in corporate corruption and embezzling in Boeing. That would be worse for Boeing as a whole than him remaining alive, but possibly better for that somebody who may not be identified.

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      It makes no sense for them to kill him, that draws wayyyy too much attention. More likely if they were involved, they blackmailed him and that caused him to kill himself, or another party that also wanted to keep him quiet killed him and they didn’t care if it looked like Boeing did it.

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      Does suicide ever add up? It being a hit doesn’t add up either. A hotel parking lot is a rather public place to try to force someone to kill themselves.

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    Guess the executives didn’t want to wait for him to take one of their planes and die naturally by getting sucked out at 35,000 feet when a door falls off.

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    “Local officials confirmed Mr. Barnett’s suicide. When asked how Mr. Barnett managed to fire the sniper shot through his bedroom window, the officer first on the scene only replied, “Trust me bro.”, while stuffing a large stack of 100 dollars bills back down the front of his pants.”

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      [2 week later] Former lead detective found dead in in what investigators have ruled a suicide. He apparently hung himself after a fit of rage where his house appeared to have kicked in his own front door, tore the hard drive out of his security camera hub, punched himself in the face a number of times, then tied the rope to a bannister and strung himself up.

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      (Interwebz pedant voice) actually there are several scenarios possible where one could conceivably kill themselves with a sniper rifle 100 yards away . . . People who don’t know about this are just so credulous, but weapons science has known for a long time that JFK actually killed himself . . .

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    i can’t find it online, but im reasonably certain i heard an interview with this guy on Canadian public radio several years ago that really shook me. he talked basically about how he wouldn’t fly on a Boeing plane, knowing what he knows and having seen what he’d seen, stuff like quality rejected parts getting taken back into inventory to meet quotas. the takeaway for me was that the quality control system that had previously worked so well was an invention of equal or possibly higher importance to any kind of aerodynamic innovation present on those planes. i work in an analogous role (in a different industry) and i really do take it more seriously after having heard the interview. nobody likes the work of quality assurance and you’ll never see someone doing a non-conformance report on TV but it’s a necessary condition for planes to stay in the sky. RIP to a real one and if he got murdered then i hope the industry burns

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      John Oliver’s Boeing broadcast last week included a video of a guy walking around a Boeing production floor asking all the people if any of them would be willing to fly in a Boeing. Of everyone he asked a single guy said yes and then followed it up with “but I kind of have a death wish.”

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        There were more yes’s, but they were cut out of the video. However, Oliver mentions after the video what amount of them said yes and what amount said no. Most of them did say “no” though.

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          If Boeing was running a tight ship with safety in mind, they should all have been yes. If one said no, that could be a disgruntled employee for some reason or another, but jesus…

          Anyways, Airbus for me it is.

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      What else does boeing do?.. It wouldn’t be military tech also? Like Apaches for example.

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    They should really make some sort of incentive to keep these people alive. Like if a whistle blower dies before the verdict of the trial/hearing make it an automatic assumption and multiply the punishment by 3 times (Treble!). Then you would have companies doing everything to not have whistle blowers die, not what we have today.

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      Your competitors take out contract hits against your whistleblower and you need to have bodyguards to protect them.

      And then your head of security and the whistleblower fall in love until at the end of the movie the competitor assassin gets into the court waiting room and the head of security throws themselves into the ninja star’s way and dies in the whistleblower’s arms as the ultimate sacrifice is made for love and corporate profits.

      I tear up just thinking about it.

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      They do have an disincentive, its called decades in jail if its discovered you kill him.

      • genie@lemmy.world
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        Exactly this. In a fucked up way a rule like that would actually incentivise whistleblowers to become martyrs.

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            Then they’d be interested to hire him all kinds of councilors and security guards so that he doesn’t kill himself.

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                  Because don’t you think that in itself is a form of witness intimidation? Won’t people be hesitant to volunteer to testify during a lengthy trial if it means a security guard literally watching them sleep and shower for months.

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        Step 1: Short company stocks Step 2: kill witness against the company Step 3: profit.

        Just one example of that being a terrible idea

    • GroteStreet 🦘@aussie.zone
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      Or, short of that… If you’re whistleblowing on Boeing, you should go to Airbus and Lockheed and tell them, “it’s in your best interest that I stay breathing”.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    The day before his testimony. He was 100% assassinated. Too bad Boeing is such a major company. This would have FBI agents crawling all over it if it wasn’t a company that can afford to buy every politician in DC.

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      Idk the DOJ opened a criminal investigation against them but that could just be theater. 100% this man was murdered though dude, no doubt about it. When I read that whole “our thoughts are with his friends and family” I got a chill man that’s so evil.

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          True, but I get the point. Like it’s hard for those of us with souls to comprehend the sheer evil it takes to murder or coerce-to-murder someone’s father/husband/brother/friend, and then tell them through your teeth “That’s so unfortunate this thing happened to them. Thoughts and prayers.”

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        If this was a Trump administration with Sessions or Barr, nothing would be done. I actually do think Garland’s DOJ cares about such corruption, so I’m hopeful this will at least be looked into.

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        We are in the era of corporate aristocracy. They are considered people, have vast wealth to manipulate and avoid the law, and when they ARE caught acting horrifically, the government just sighs and says "Well we can’t stop having products so I guess it really was suicide lol’

        And us normal peasants just have to suck it up.

        Time to storm the fucking castle.

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        Yeah I guess they have no reason to divulge active investigations to the public, but yeah, obviously the optics on this are super fucked.

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    I’m not going to say that Boeing had this guy directly killed, but I can certainly see them and their legal team explicitly trying to make his life as hellish as possible until he felt that he only had one way out. Legal threats if you stop proceeding with your case, legals threats if you don’t, they want a terrible warning for any other whistleblowers.

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      My brother in Freedom Jesus, faking a murder to look like suicide is as American as apple pie!

      Hell the most notorious pedophile in history, who definitely had video of the world’s richest men committing statutory rape and assault, killed himself in one of the most secure locations anyone could imagine, surrounded by guards and video cameras! And nobody saw a thing! HA! And we’re all like “well i guess that sordid chapter is over” hahahaha. Oh man. It literally works every. single. time.

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      The Russians will throw someone out the window or poison them in a very obvious way, the Americans will put two in their head and have it ruled a suicide.

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        I love the one where the guy “killed himself” by duck taping himself to a lawn chair and then throwing himself in the pool.

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      8 months ago

      No, it’s probably more of a mob style self-inflicted wound. Didn’t say he shot himself in the head twice and jumped out a window.

      • merthyr1831@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        With how many assassinations the US carries out, I think they deserve to at least be called USicides

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      The fact that several airlines let you filter out plane models indicates people are indeed doing that. Airbus: no fuss; no muss.

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      At what part of the trip. When boarding? You think the airline will accommodate? You already paid.

        • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 months ago

          That assumes there will always be a good alternative to choose from.

          From where I live to go back home to my parents there is exactly one provider that flies directly. All other connections have stop-overs. Not even talking about price difference.

      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I am actually at the point where I will avoid Boeing 737-MAX at booking, ask again at check-in to confirm the plane type, and if I saw one at the gate, I would refuse to board and accept the money as a loss. Unfortunately not everyone can afford re-booking like that. So f*ck Boeing and I just hope that Airbus won’t ever be that corrupt (chances are they are or will be at some point).

          • Emerald@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I mean… It takes a bit to learn how to fly a plane. They wouldn’t really want to dispose of that skill and learn to fly Airbus instead.

            • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I’m no pilot, but I can’t imagine these particular variants have been around so long for retraining to be a serious issue. Not when mass death is on the line and older, reliable Boeing planes still exist.

              • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I am not sure what you are trying to say exactly, however the re-certification that should be required for the 737-MAX was exactly the reason for introducing the MCAS software to prevent the crew certified for older 737 models from pushing the nose into the ground on take-off. That, together with glossing over the major design change so that no pilot would flag “hey, this is a new plane, we should get a proper new certification for this” contributed to the two crashes, murdering 350something people over profit.

                Boeing wanted to sell a new plane model with significantly altered aerodynamic behavior as a “variant” of an existing one so airlines could save cost on not having to re-certify pilots.

                • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  I’m saying if the newer, problematic planes aren’t going to be forced to ground by regulators, pilots should refuse to fly them. Surely there are plenty of planes still flying built by Boeing before they sold souls. Surely those won’t require massive retraining. Fly them instead.

          • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Because most older Boeing models are actually robust aircraft & when the maintenance is in the hand of a capable airline, there’s nothing wrong with them from the perspective of safety. But as Boeing continues to fuck this up, and murder whistleblowers - I doubt there will be Boeing airplanes left to safely board in the future.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        The airline will accommodate just fine: “Oh, you don’t want to fly? Too bad, the exit is that way.”

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Because its kind of possible to organize such mass boycotts without groups set up to manage it, and none are coming forward on this.

      I mean hell, even the republicunt boycott of beer couldn’t be arsed to actually make a difference, and MAN the mixture of beer and queerness is the exact trigger to rile those bigots.

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Why don’t news organizations address the elephant in the room? They can say there is no evidence of foul play but the circumstances warrant further investigation as his death is quite convenient for Bowing. I don’t see how that could be libelous.

    • JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Because news organizations no longer do any work investigating, only propagandizing for the sweet greenback$. 💰

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      They can be sued if they claim Boeing executives murdered a guy unless there are court records showing Boeing executives were convicted for murdering a guy. However, I guarantee you people like Trevor Noah and John Oliver will absolutely run with this bit if they get the chance.

      “WhY iSN’t ThE MEdiA CoVEriNG tHe NeWs” people scream in the comments of a news feed that alerted them to this exact issue.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s simply not true. Defamation/libel against a public company requires “actual malice”, which essentially means that the news outlet would have to have evidence that what they’re saying is not true.

        Fox was going to lose to Dominion because they 100% knew they were lying about the company, and there were records proving it. It’s not actually common at all for cases regarding defamation against public figures or corporations to go anywhere.

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          You bringing up the Fox News counter-example and claiming it was a one off is kind of self-awarewolf.

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            8 months ago

            I’m bringing it up because it was a remarkably rare thing that recently happened.

            The reason Fox lies 50 times a minute is because defamation is incredibly difficult to prove.

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        8 months ago

        did you even read the comment you’re responding to?

          • fosho@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            You absolutely did not. The question was not: “Why don’t news organizations claim Boeing execs murdered a guy…?” The commenter was clearly aware of the problem of libel, which you completely ignored. They asked why news orgs aren’t discussing the fact that the death comes at a suspiciously convenient time - because they aren’t. This is not the same as claiming that he was murdered by Boeing.

            • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              He claimed it shouldn’t be libelous and I explained that it would be libelous. You’re implying that journalists are somehow dancing around the issue, which is silly because we’re all pretty well informed that the whistleblower was probably murdered.

              • fosho@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                it’s not libelous to discuss the elephant in the room. you did not explain anything. you just disregarded the question with your assumption.

                • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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                  8 months ago

                  If you say a person or entity with a public image did something really bad that they haven’t been strictly proven to have done, with exceptions for things such as parody, then that is defamation. So, yes, it can be libelous to talk about the fucking elephant.

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    8 months ago

    So, the guy was expected to appear in court for thw second round of questioning and when he didn’t show up was found dead in his truck in the underground car park of the hotel. Doesn’t sound like someone that wanted to end it. Maybe I’m wrong but I wouldn’t book a room to go to court and then on a whim decide to end it.

    They should investigate the coroner asap.

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      8 months ago

      Most people that kill themselves do so on a whim. Its probably not the case, but its not impossible. I’m guessing either the coroner is corrupt, or they have actual evidence it was a suicide. If it was a murder, then I doubt Boeing would do it without assurance it couldn’t be traced back to them. So regardless of what actually happened, the only official story there will ever be is that it was a suicide. That is, unless Boeing is as reckless about murder as they are about building planes.

      • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Most people that kill themselves do so on a whim.

        [Citation required]

        I would argue that most likely than not there is a trail of depression and/or mental illness that leads up to the actual act being done.

        • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Absolutely, I don’t mean there is no warning whatsoever. There is almost always a history of depression, but that history is not always visible to loved ones, let alone the public. I just mean they are likely not specifically planning to commit suicide until soon before they do it, which at least in my experience is true

          • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yeah it could emerge apparently at random for unsuspecting familiars, but this guy was about to do something that was important for him, on which he worked for years according to the article. Sounds sus to me.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        8 months ago

        Most people who commit suicide actually plan to do it. There is plenty of warning beforehand.

  • blahsay@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’ll never fly in a Boeing again after hearing this. Unless the ceo gets arrested 🤔

    Kayak lets you search via plane model fyi

    • smb@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      thanks for the info about kayak, very appreciated!!

      me same, i would never again willingly book a flight with a boeing airplane.

      in my mind that B. company got the status of a criminal organization >20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it. back then however the discussions were about computers overriding pilot control, not about a company intentionally risking lives.

      Now they seem to me to still refuse to fix the problems and instead rename planes so that one cannot avoid their deathtraps unless not at all flying with their aircrafts. so i choose to only book flights with aviation companies that do not have B. planes at all. I decided to in future rather use a car or boat instead, if only B. planes are available.

      i would not be surprised if the current “technical event” would be the actual same cause that “forced the nose down” over 20years ago, to me it sounds exactly like the same until now, it might just luckily have happened by chance high enough in the air so that the “nose forced down by computer” problem could somehow be solved with enough time where they had only seconds in that crash two decades ago.

      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        20 years ago when they afaik refused to fix a problem with sensors and the computer overriding pilot control which crashed the plane just after takeoff while pilot could not do anything against it

        Erm. Are you talking about something OTHER than the changed 737-MAX design and the MCAS system? Because those two related crashes happened in late 2018 and early 2019 - 5-6 years ago. Got a link to the >20 years ago incident you are talking about?

        • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          The only crash I know of thats similar to what they’re talking about happened in an airbus plane, and during landing not takeoff. The pilots tried to pull up on their side sticks to avoid crashing, but the plane ignored the input because it would have overcorrected and caused the plane to stall. As a result they crashed onto the runway.

          That isn’t to say Boeing doesn’t have a history with such things. Look into United Airlines 811 in 1989. Improper design caused a massive chunk of the fuselage to be ripped out in flight, throwing 9 people into the ocean and causing a rapid decompression. Initial investigations said the cause was human error, but the family of one of the victims researched it themselves and found out that wasn’t the case.

          • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Can’t find an airbus crash on landing with that description - do you have a year, place, or flight number?

            And of course, Boeing and Airbus also have had bad design decisions - just think of the A400-M…

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                8 months ago

                Thanks. Reading up on that however, reads like not so much a negligent design, but a lesson learned from a new scenario that hadn’t caused an issue before.

                PS: I cringed hard at the use of “male” in the description of the pilot & copilot on the wikipedia page - seems some incel wrote that…

                • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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                  8 months ago

                  I would’ve assumed it should have been designed to dampen the input to a point where it isn’t dangerous, instead of ignoring it entirely. There could be a reason they didn’t do that which I’m not seeing, but that seems like a good idea at first glance.

        • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Not the person you responded to, but they may be talking about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which I believe the FAA grounded (I could be misremembering the John Oliver points about it) after several incidents within the first few months of release.

        • smb@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          what i meant was decades ago, not the “recent” crashes of 2018…

          i tried to find it but didn’t yet. there are way more plane crashes than i thought i would have to go through…

          looking at “new technology” introduced (as it was quite new) i stumbled over this article and remembered that the “three computers voting” (while the pilot may only take place in that voting - as a minority …) was part of the discussions back then (which is not written in that article however, but i found one piece, yay!):

          https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19950605&slug=2124705

          i feel like i could remember something wrong like it maybe was not a takeoff but possibly a go-around where the crash happened… not sure i won’t yet give up searching, but i have to stop for now…

          edit: i am not saying it was a 777, i just found a piece of my 20year old puzzle…

          • smb@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            went through lots of plane accidents to find the one i think to remember, but had to stop as i do not want to increase fear of flying. however i stumbled about this one, Airbus A320 Air France flight 296 on 26th of June, 1988 which was sort of related as some “security” mechs seemed to have prevented crash prevention there and fired discussions. but this one was earlier and it was not boeing (and it looks like no one tried to cover things). however since it was during an airshow, not a commercial flight, i now figured out that the one i remember could have been a testflight, cargo flight or something else like a flight show as well… not sure if i “can” find it, the little i remember.

    • misspacfic@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      good call on kayak.

      just tried it out by excluding MAX models of aircraft and it worked. unfortunately, that severely limits options, but hey, it’s possible.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      I just looked at a regular domestic Air Canada flight from Pearson to YVR… $1500 fucking dollars to catch an Airbus over a Boeing. Seems like the demand to not be on a Boeing plane is driving plane tickets into the stratosphere.

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        8 months ago

        That’s just air Canada.

        Their new motto: ‘We’re not happy till you’re not happy’

  • Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This is “falling out of a window or down an elevator shaft in Russia”-level blatant.

    This appears very loud and clear to any other potential whistle-blowers.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You forgot blown-up plane. For Boeing it is super easy.

      • Welt@lazysoci.al
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        8 months ago

        Yes, a prominent manufacturer is likely to publicly destroy their product to target one person, rather than simply have their lawyers and accountants make life as difficult as possible for this person.

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          8 months ago

          They seem to be just fine publicly destroying their products for better stock prices.