Wednesday 10 July 2013

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)


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