Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems who raised concerns about manufacturing defects in Boeing’s 737 MAX, has died at the age of 45.
Dean passed away on Tuesday following a two-week battle with a fast-moving infection that left him in critical condition.
Who knew Hillary was on Boeing’s payroll now? 😱😵🤐😲🪦 pic.twitter.com/2qmNLvlXcx
— Bill Peguillan (@BillPegs) May 3, 2024
According to his family, Dean was stricken with Influenza B and MRSA, which developed into pneumonia. Despite being airlifted from a hospital in Wichita, Kansas, to a facility in Oklahoma City, medical teams were unable to save his life.
“My handsome brother Joshua passed away this morning and is with our baby brother. I don’t know how much more my family can take. I don’t know how much more I can take, honestly,” his sister, Taylor Rae Roberts, wrote in a Facebook post.
JUST IN: A second whistleblower connected to Boeing has suddenly died at the age of 45 after catching a “sudden illness.”
Whistleblower Joshua Dean was known for being in good health and having a healthy lifestyle.
Dean was one of the first whistleblowers to accuse Boeing… pic.twitter.com/XVac3BlcEU
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 2, 2024
Dean had an active lifestyle and was believed to be in good health prior to his sudden illness. “He was just amazing,” said Winn Weir Dean’s stepfather. “He could read something, and then he could just tell you word for word what he read” days later.
The whistleblower’s death is the latest in a string of incidents related to embattled Boeing over the past year and in January, Dean told the Wall Street Journal that he had been fired for pointing out that holes in jet fuselages had been drilled wrong.
He was terminated from Spirit Aerosystems in April 2023 and later complained that his firing was in retaliation for speaking out.
Dean is the second Boeing-related whistleblower to die in recent months following the death of John Barnett in March.
