In my previous life I worked in a company that always assumed that the worst was going to happen. As well as rigorously enforcing health and safety policies (which, purely by coincidence, meant we killed or injured far fewer people than you might expect given the nature of our business); we also had a crisis management plan for when things went spectacularly wrong.
The plan was written up in a large manual and kept in a room nominated as the control room should an emergency arise. Training took place, people were nominated into various roles and drills were held on a regular basis. It was just my luck to be “duty manager” when one of these drills was initiated; which meant I spent several stressful hours locked in a meeting room when I could have been relaxing with a coffee and planning my retirement,
At the start of the exercise we were informed that is was a drill; but from that point on it felt like anything but. There had been an explosion and fire at our onshore oil field. The plant was ablaze and people were dead and injured. What do you do next? Fucked if I knew.
My immediate inclination was to curl up in a corner and weep; but that would not have been very managerial; so instead I tried to ensure that we were doing everything we could to safeguard people and safeguard the plant. As the exercise progressed over a couple of hours or more, we were given updates of the imaginary events and things went from bad to worse; with more explosions and injuries. By the time we had finished, all those involved felt emotionally drained and I recall inflicting significant damage on a bottle of red wine when I returned home.
What I recall from that day, apart from the hangover the following morning, was the crucial role of communication. We had a dedicated team working on media issues, the main switchboard would be told to pass all media enquiries to the crisis room, and all staff would be told not to comment on the event. Early in the crisis we would prepare a briefing every hour or so, containing carefully checked facts and reviewed by a member of the management team before release (god help them, me). The media focal point was trained in media relations and was capable of standing in front of the press without making a complete cock-up. The overall plan was to ensure that we provided regular, consistent and accurate information to those who wanted or needed to know. I like to think that we were rather good at it; or would have been had we actually had a crisis, and another manager was overseeing things.
I was reminded of our exercise following the disappearance of MH370. I am not sure if Malaysian airlines has a crisis management plan; but if they do they need to work on it.
It doesn’t help that the Malaysian government is a long-established regime which is used to doing and saying whatever it likes with very little opportunity for serious challenge from the local media or populace. This prompted assorted ill-prepared representatives of the airline and the government to stand up and spout incomplete information in front of the world’s media; and then immediately being made to look foolish and incompetent as other leaked information was thrown back at them. The problems were compounded when army sources waded in with additional information; and even a representative of the police decided he wanted his fifteen minutes of fame by offering some opinions. Best (worst) was a local bomoh (witch doctor) who decided that the airplane had been taken over by elves. Of course it was.
Inevitably, an incident where there is not yet a resolution makes media management much harder, with the press seeking out sound bites and opinions wherever they can find them in order to construct an article; but the general feeling is that the Malaysian government could have handled this a whole lot better than it has so far.
It is now clear that foul play was involved; so that gives the media some new and bizarre angles to explore. The New York Daily news offered “Malaysia Airlines pilot’s ‘Democracy is Dead’ T-shirt fuels talk that he hijacked the flight”; the talk being fuelled by the New York Daily News. But they have a point; anyone who is against the current government of their country will have an inclination to crash a plane and kill hundreds of people… They also report that a representative of Homeland Security feels like the FBI should have been called in earlier to investigate the pilots. Indeed they should, especially as the pilot with the revolutionary T-shirt had also had the audacity to build a flight simulator in his home. Not because he enjoyed flying and wanted to share it with his friends, but because.. well, no reason is given why this behaviour is abhorrent; other than it is assumed it is what terrorists would do if they wanted to hijack an airliner and didn’t already have 18,000 hours of flying experience.
All this must be hell for the families of the pilots; but the media needs some bogeymen now that it is clear that someone hijacked the plane; and none of the passengers have emerged as likely villains. And it is of course impossible to comprehend the suffering of the relatives of the passengers who still don’t know whether the plane is at the bottom of the ocean (most likely) or parked on a distant airstrip (unlikely).
For the rest of us, the initial empathy and sympathy tends to fade over time and we are left with a detective story for which we hope there will be a resolution and the faint chance of a happy ending. Which is no excuse for repeating something I read on Twitter this morning:
I just put my mobile into ‘aeroplane mode’ and now I can’t find it.
Sorry.
Comments 🔗
2014-03-18| Andrew saysIf this follows the 9/11 plan then they will find amongst the unrecognizable debris 1 or 2 perfectly preserved passports ( possibly the ones stolen from the Thai motorbike rental shop ) whereupon the the voice of Dick ( Shaddap or I’ll shoot yer face ) Cheney will bellow " See…told yas all….terrists…let’s invade Malaysia…or Italy …or Iran, ya that’s a good one….but maybe not China"….since:
“Stolen passports carried by two Iranian men to board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were used last year by two people applying for visas to work as entertainers in China, according to the head of an entertainment company. Xie Zhuoling, the head of a firm that recruits foreign performers for nightclubs and hotels, said that employment contracts had been signed in June for Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, an Italian, to work as dancers in Ningxia, northern China
I’m kinda sure that “Luigi " is not the most popular ladyboy name and he didn’t look like he had just done a stint at Chippendales….
2014-03-18| Andrew saysTo be fair, not too many hijackers announce their intentions with the phrase, “alright, goodnight “…so something seems a bit off here….