Rob Turkowitz
Appearances
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
John came in and started telling me about what complaints he had been making and what was going on at Boeing. Just listening to it, it was incredible.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
And as he told me from day one, he said, I, you know, I was concerned about the flying public and that was his number one priority. And he said that with the violations that were going on at the 787 plant, it needs to be made public and the regulators need to know about it. And at some point, you know, Boeing's going to be held accountable for it.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
Every time he tried to fill out an application, he just couldn't do it because of, you know, he just started having these anxiety attacks and panic attacks. He didn't want to risk having to be working for individuals that would subject him to, you know, the kind of hostile work environment he was subjected to.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
Yeah, I mean, I think his experience at Boeing had a profound effect on him. And it just totally affected his life and everything around him.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
You know, each time there was a problem with Boeing, like the crashes and all, it made him even more determined to make sure that his voice was heard, not only by the FAA, but also by the public. He felt like the public needed to be warned about these things.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
Well, the first day was Boeing's lawyer deposing him, and she was going in a whole litany of questions and repeating a lot of the questions over and over again, which John found to be pretty frustrating.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
And we got maybe four hours of questioning in and we just had a few more, maybe an hour or two left. But we noticed that John was getting really tired and it was getting into late afternoon. So John had basically said that he was just, you know, ready to go back to Louisiana and asked if he could do that.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
John basically didn't want to do anything that was going to delay the case and delay the trial date. I mean, he had waited so long to just get a trial date. So John said, all right, you know, we'll go forward. And so the next day we were going to resume the deposition at 10 o'clock in the morning.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
So I called the hotel and asked whether or not John had checked out. They said he had not. I asked them to try his room. just to see if he's still there. And he wasn't. So finally, I asked the hotel manager if she would check to see if his truck was still there, hoping that he was at least on its way. And she came back and she said, the truck is still there. I called EMS.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
It was kind of a surreal scene, you know, with the emergency vehicles all surrounding John's car and not being able to find out through the emergency responders what was going on and what happened.
The Journal.
The Life and Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
I mean, we were all devastated by it. And, you know, it was just hard to know. I mean, we were just in shock, really.