Since starting this blog, I’ve enjoyed an ongoing dialogue with Tony Jaques, a Melbourne-based issues and crisis expert. Tony read my posts on the Qantas A380 situation from last November and told me he’d keep me posted on local updates.
Last week, Tony forwarded his update post and granted permission for me to re-post in its entirety, below.
Although penned more than a year and a half ago, I recently stumbled upon a thought-provoking cartoon by Stuart McMillen and based on text by Neil Postman. I’ve posted two key panels to the left, but clicking there will take you to the entire cartoon.
In full, it concludes that Huxley’s fears have become more prevalent than Orwell’s, and that the public has an “almost infinite appetite for distractions.” Information and entertainment overload are thought to be contributing factors. We are hyperlinked, super networked and gadget consumed. (For example, how many travelers do you see toggling through email, Twitter, AP news and Angry Birds apps when in an airport? How many of you are those travelers? I’m partially guilty.)
If the Huxley fears are accurate, it raises an interesting question for crisis/reputation managers.
Does a crisis today have more impact or less impact than, say, a decade ago when bad news came from fewer focal points?
By example, I’d venture to guess that the public was more informed about the Toyota recall or the Qantas’ emergency landing (caused by a faulty Rolls-Royce engine) than a decade ago. But is the impact the same as a decade ago?
Continue reading Poll: Impact of crises today – deep or shallow?
Earlier this month, I posted some thoughts on key social networking crisis management lessons that may – or may not – emanate from the Qantas A380 emergency landing. To my knowledge, many of the posed questions have not been addressed on that part of the crisis response. So let’s continue to set those social media questions aside.
However, let’s not overlook some of the real-world lessons from the situation. For example, this AP story provides a harrowing account of what the crew faced in the cockpit. Key excerpts:
“The amount of failures is unprecedented,” said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. “There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong.”
But it did.
Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane?
The wing’s forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing’s two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.
The electrical power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy.
That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash.
And then there was that incredible stream of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures.
And now, the important part:
If you are unfamiliar with Wednesday’s dramatic events that happened to Qantas, Austrialia’s national airline that has never had a fatal accident, the events are nicely chronicled on this post from Tnooz, a news and analysis site on the travel industry.
Condensed summary:
The Tnooz reporter concludes that the airline could have done more on Twitter to reassure the public. Ragan.com’s Matt Wilson calls the situation “Qantas’s big #fail in quelling tweeted rumors of a crash.” Crisisblogger Gerald Baron raises good questions and challenges, but ultimately grades the situation a C- to F grade.
In my view, Qantas deserves a little more deliberation on its deliberation.
