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Comment by gorbachev | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of whether there was foul play or not, it's looking pretty bad for Boeing.

They, or someone else with a stake of protecting the company, killed someone, or they made someone so despaired he saw no other way than to kill himself.

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Or someone with an interest in making Boeing look bad, such as Comac or a foreign government that wants to tarnish the reputation of one of America's largest exporters.

Why would someone do that? Boeing are plenty competent and making themselves look bad. Just fly a couple planes into the ground, forget a few nuts and bolts here and there, they are doing fine.

> they made someone so despaired he saw no other way than to kill himself.

Give the man some agency. If he chose to end his own life, that was his decision alone. And it may be entirely unrelated to Boeing. Maybe he would have done it anyway at this point in his life.

>Maybe he would have done it anyway at this point in his life.

You'd think after he was done with hearings, something he was been advocating and trying to have happen since 2017. Why would he do Boeing a favor and kill himself before he could inflict further damage to the company?

Inflict damage or have the company wake up to its duty to safety and realign with its original intentions?

I see whistleblowing as a call to integrity and healing, not an act of personal retribution.

Regardless, as a practitioner in the Quality field, I find the timing exceedingly suspect. Even if Boeing did rip him a new one in deposition, (which 32 years of employment and a documentation heavy culture more than equips a legal department to do) you don't close the ticket until it's resolved. He may have intended to do this all along; but not before all the dirty laundry got aired.

There is no way that any of this doesn't smell to high heaven. Not with a Federal criminal probe in the wind.

    Even if Boeing did rip him a new one in deposition, 
    (which 32 years of employment and a documentation heavy 
    culture more than equips a legal department to do)

There is no joy in this situation whatsoever but if these weren't matters of life and death, it would be darkly humorous to imagine Boeing's legal team attempting to simultaneously explain that he was a bad employee and that they for some reason chose to employ him for 32 years.

I'm really trying to steel man the suicide angle. If he was unstable enough coming out to go through with suicide, but according to all other sources was eager and ready going in, that'd suggest something happened between time_entrance & time_left that reduced a man with the conviction to take on his employer of 32 years on behalf of the public and his own standards; to a suicidal wreck.

Either A) They seriously ripped him a new one, by presenting evidence that countered the accusations being levied in his case sufficiently that he realized there was no further point going on.

or through rhetoric, or trickery, opposing council got him to believe that it was all his fault somehow.

B I can see, maybe. As someone whose done the work before, in spite of hostile management even, it iis very easy for a company to drum up every mistake or failure ever committed to paper. Sitting through 32 years of opposing council's best attempts to discredit you would be rough.

A I just can't see. Not with what we know. I could even understand a suicide after all depositions were done. We all collect ghosts; and they haunt us so well. Not before every last name was named. I dotted, and T crossed.

I suppose a C) could be an offer that couldn't be refused that would ensure his family'd be taken care of, but even that'd be ludicrous given what he already knew of their trustworthyness.

I guess I'll have to wait for things to end up in RECAP to read and make a conclusive decision.

Yeah, best to not try to attribute any meaning to this, as it would be bad for Boeing shareholders.

I wonder if there's a clause where retirement benefits are clawed back if you choose to become a whistleblower. That would hurt; 62 years old, your whole life spent at Boeing, and then all your retirement suddenly evaporates because you chose to cause problems.

I doubt it - such a clause would be trivially illegal, since it would be retaliation for reporting a safety concern.

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