Crisis communications lessons from an aircraft crash in San Francisco

Travelling by air last year was the safest it's ever been.   It's said, statistically, that it is safer to fly than to get into your car to go to the airport.

There are many reasons for this, and they are all to do with a focus on safety over decades - including the design and manufacture of aircraft, and the training of flight crew and flight attendants.

Asiana 214, a Boeing 777 aircraft flying from Shanghai via Seoul, approached the runway at San Francisco International Airport on 6th July, and as this chilling video (taken by chance by a member of the public) shows, a disaster was about to happen.  The aircraft failed to make it to the runway, the tail was ruptured away and the remainder of the aircraft bounced down the runway, out of control.  Other videos show passengers jumping down the evacuation slides, as smoke begins to come from the wreckage, and finally the plane is engulfed in flames.

There were 307 people on board.   Early reports of scores feared dead, were rapidly changed as it emerged that to date, 2 had died - 2 young girls from China - with a number with very serious injuries, including likely permanent paralysis.  That several hundred people emerged from this catastrophe still alive and with survivable injuries is a testament to design and training and the determination of the aviation industry to learn and apply lessons from every incident.  It's also testament to the efforts and discipline over decades at San Francisco International Airport and the local emergency services and hospitals to have emergency plans and procedures in place and for them to be carefully rehearsed, all for an event they hoped would never happen.

I'm currently in San Francisco, and have been able to look at the media management of this very serious incident at close hand, and want to look at some aspects of this in a few blog posts, as I think there are some great lessons we can all learn.

The Asiana crash exhibits all the criteria which enables us to classify this incident as a crisis.  It was sudden, without warning and catastrophic in nature.   It placed the lives and safety of large numbers of people under serious and immediate threat.   The survival of the people on board would depend on the response of the authorities at the airport, when their own plans and training would be put under a severe test.  One firefighter said he had never attended an aircraft fire, but it was the moment he had spent years training for.

The second feature common in every crisis is the initial shortage of facts.    An emergency is typically characterised by initial shock and confusion, and the purpose of crisis communications is to bring order to this situation by delivering facts and information as quickly and as accurately as possible to interested parties (such as survivors and relatives of those on board) and to the public via the news media, by now clearing news channel schedules in the US to focus exclusively on the crash.

The golden rule in crisis communications is: timely, accurate and clear information.    Authorities avoid estimating casualties for very good reason.   Estimates often turn out to be wrong.   Accuracy will help you build a reputation as the trusted source of information in an emergency.

In the initial press conferences which must be held after an air crash, there is a loud and urgent clamour for facts, but this is a dangerous moment, and enormous care is required when giving out facts in the early hours after a major event involving death and injury.

It's also essential, however, that you work hard to provide accurate facts as quickly as possible.  The friends and families of those involved in the incident are desperate for further information, and the news media have a legitimate interest in reporting as fully as they can.

An early press conference at San Francisco International Airport appeared unscripted and was unclear in the way casualty figures were presented, with the fact there had been confirmed fatalities having to be be prompted by a journalist.  Casualty figures are the most important piece of information you have to give in these circumstances and you should give them very slowly and very clearly indeed, and you should be reading from a script when you do so.   In the San Francisco press conference, the lack of clarity led to anchors and reporters on CNN having to try to decipher the figures for some time afterwards, adding up numbers live on air trying to make sense of them. Figures need to be clear, and the categories you are using need to be explained very clearly. For example, what do you mean when you say people are "unaccounted for"?  (This does not mean that you think those missing are necessarily in the burning aircraft.  Injured passengers are taken away as quickly as possible by a wide range of people and means and it takes time to check where they are and their condition).

The Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah Hersman, could write the textbook on clarity and measured response.  She has given hours of interviews and press conferences so far, and her appearances should be studied by anyone who may have to hold a press conference in an emergency.

Your guiding principles for giving out information in an emergency should be:

1.  Timely.   Relatives and survivors as well as the public have a legitimate need for information about what has happened as quickly as possible.

2.  Accurate.    It's vital that you are the trusted source of all information.

3.  Clear.  You must be very clear about the meaning of information you give.  Anticipate how the information might be misinterpreted, and be very clear about what you mean.

One other feature of the early media management of the accident was that both San Francisco Airport and the San Francisco General Hospital held press conferences at exactly the same time.   This led to news outlets trying to juggle between two very important briefings and meant that some of the content of the events was missed.  The airport press conference had precedence in the early hours.   Authorities must co-ordinate the timings of press conference in this live media age.  It's easy to adjust timings so that events follow on from each other.  This was corrected the next day.

None of this is intended to detract from outstanding work at the airport and hospitals in dealing with this sudden catastrophe.  It is the kind of event that may happen only once in your professional lifetime.  The emergency services reacted quickly and there is no doubt that many risked their lives to enter the burning aircraft to save survivors.  Many owe their lives to them, and to the brave flight attendants who survived the crash and despite their own injuries remained on the aircraft helping passengers get off.  There's always much to learn after an air crash, but those who are on the front line deserve our respect and admiration.

And despite a sense of relief here that the casualty figures are surprisingly low,  the sight of devastated parents beginning the sad journey from China to San Francisco to bring the bodies of their daughters home is a stark reminder of how accidents change lives forever.



(Posted from San Francisco)

Offenbach in San Francisco and a TV Cook in trouble

In the opulent San Francisco Opera House last week, I looked around at my fellow patrons in a packed house for a cast which included the soprano Natalie Dessay, a name which guarantees a sell-out.  I pondered on the total worth of the audience in the theatre.  Certainly, billions of dollars.

After the matinee performance, they stepped out on to the streets around the Opera House, which is in a district close to one of the poorest areas of the city, the Tenderloin.   It's necessary to walk past a shocking number of psychotically ill people walking or lying in the streets to get to one's parked car, or the MUNI underground train.  It's unavoidable, as the streets are littered with the bodies of people whose faces are twisted with mental pain and torment and they struggle with the voices in their head tormenting them as they shout back at them.  Many pace up and down, unable to find relief.  I'm told quite a number of them are veterans who have struggled to come to terms with what they saw during service on behalf of the United States.   Their presence in the streets of US cities (I'm told by people here) followed a policy of President Reagan of closing the large mental hospitals in the US.  The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any care put in their place.  If there is, it isn't working, as a stroll along these streets would tell you.

There was another thing I noticed.  All of the people on the streets I saw were African American.  It's not that there are not others who are untreated and psychotic.  It's just that none of the people I saw were white. The picture of them in the street stayed in my mind and troubled me afterwards.  I couldn't see what hope they had of a better life, and I felt it was hard not to conclude that race did not play a part in the cards they were dealt.

I was reminded of my visit a few days later when I had half an ear on a bulletin on TV which reported a crisis involving a well-known celebrity cook and restaurant chain owner in the US, Paula Deen.  The report alleged she had used the "N" word (the most offensive of the racial slurs), and I, half listening, assumed it had slipped out on air.  I thought she must either be very stupid or very ignorant.

As I watched later bulletins more closely, it turned out that Mrs Deen was being sued by a former employee of her restaurant chain, who was making numerous allegations about her, including that she had used racist language.   In a deposition for the case, Mrs Deen accepted she had used in the "N" word in the past, although she did say "that's just not a word that we use as time has gone on".  There were other allegations that Mrs Deen had said she liked the idea of a Southern style wedding with only African American waiters dressed in white just like the old days (Mrs Deen is Southern).   The issue was leaked to an American magazine.  It took a while to take off, but take off it did, as general outrage ensued, stoked by the media and social media.   She was suspended from the Food Network and lucrative sponsorship deals fell one by one.

Mrs Deen appeared to make it worse with a video apology that wasn't an apology.  Then she was to appear on the Today show.  Then she cancelled it.  Then she appeared on it.  Her tearful sort-of apology was described by a commentator on CNN as the "worst mea culpa ever" and "sentiment towards Paula Deen was worse after the Today interview".  "I is what I is", she said, and what she is, isn't much liked apparently.

Mrs Deen was portraying the worst kind of crisis management.  Because she is a famous TV personality, she did not appear to have taken the right advice before appearing and her apology was at best late and equivocal, depending on an emotional performance, and appeared to be driven by her loss of sponsorship, not genuine regret at the hurt she had caused.

But I was less interested in Mrs Deen's gifts of media management than the apparent outrage at what she had done.  Let me be clear: racist language hurts deeply and causes damage.  It is not OK, and where it is used, we need to correct it and help those who use it understand the damage it causes.  When language like this is used, it is the moment for an unequivocal apology - and most of the public require to know that you understand fully why what you did was wrong.

But here was a situation where across America people and companies were outraged at the use of a racist slur against African Americans.  Well, except several hundred thousand Paula Deen fans who took to Facebook and queued up at Mrs Deen's restaurants to show their support.

What I couldn't understand was this.  Were some of the outraged the same people who stepped over untreated psychotically ill African American people outside the Opera?   Where was that same outrage at that point?

I asked a wise American friend about it.   He explained.  This story is not really about racism any longer, he said.  It's the usual.  It started with genuine anger that this word is still being used in America today, a country with an African American President.   But now, it's about money and the fall of a celebrity.  That is what is driving the news coverage and the crisis.   It's not that anyone is saying racist language isn't unacceptable.  It's just that they are more interested in the consequences.  And people are always more interested in money.

I felt muddled that a nation apparently outraged at the use of a word was not outraged that African Americans are lying on US streets in torment and if anyone cares, I didn't see it.  If that isn't racism I don't known what is.  And it's a far worse kind of racism than Mrs Deen, once seen as a wholesome woman, and now regarded as rather silly, appeared to exhibit.

It was a reminder to me that a crisis is not always at its core what is appears at first to be about.  Of course, the root cause (the use of racist language) must be addressed.   But once the consequences start to roll, you're in trouble, because you can't address consequences.

But what causes sudden and widespread offence sometimes surprises us.   Social media, frequently a vehicle for sudden and emotional expression, accentuates this sense of overwhelming offence.   In this case the offence was real and it needed to be recognised and accepted - and addressed directly.  But there's no rule of human behaviour that says that offence must be logical.

Mrs Deen will bounce back from this.  She's a popular woman who made a terrible mistake, and hopefully she's learned something.  I hope she realises why it was wrong, and that she will get some good advice on restoring her reputation, and she'll listen to it.  But when the public reacts strongly to something you do (and I understand in this case why they did), you have to address the emotion and hurt that they feel, whether you like it or not.

Here is my advice if you ever get into Mrs Deen's situation:

1.  When you are involved in litigation, scenario plan on all the negative aspects of the case, and try to pre-empt them.  Don't hand your pursuers a PR gift.

2.  React quickly and sincerely.  Don't assume because you work in the media that you know how to deal with a public relations emergency.  In my experience media people almost never do.

3.  Make sure your apology is sincere and is accompanied by action.  For example, Mrs Deen could have announced she was meeting with an organisation that fights racism so that she could better understand the issues.   It's my own view that emotion (including crying) during TV interviews isn't a good thing and tends to be viewed as insincere.  However, I accept that the American market is different.  I know you can be over composed but sobbing I think is treated with scepticism in Britain, particularly when it is from performers.  In Mrs Deen's case some viewers felt she was crying because she had lost all the deals and her business was falling apart.

I love the United States and I love Americans (well most of them), but as a British person, I still don't completely understand them.  Trust me, there are untreated psychotically ill people on the streets of London, but not in the quantity one sees in US cities. I wish American people would be as outraged about the people they step over as they leave the Opera as they are about a terrible word a TV cook said in her office.   Then something might be done.

In the meantime, Happy 4th July!



(Posted from San Francisco)