Facing the WorldPresenting the Facts in an Emergency

Andrew Healey & Christopher Wigdor Advancing Blade Communications

Facing the WorldPresenting the Facts in an Emergency

Andrew Healey & Christopher Wigdor Advancing Blade Communications

Facing the WorldPresenting the Facts in an Emergency

Andrew Healey & Christopher Wigdor Advancing Blade Communications

There’s been an accident …

There’s been an accident …

“People are saying …”

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact• “Expert commentators” (the usual suspects)

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact• “Expert commentators” (the usual suspects)• Confusion reigns

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact• “Expert commentators” (the usual suspects)• Confusion reigns• Human cost

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact• “Expert commentators” (the usual suspects)• Confusion reigns• Human cost• Reputational cost

How the story develops• The media gets hold of it• Mainstream and social• Speculation is standard• Comment treated as fact• “Expert commentators” (the usual suspects)• Confusion reigns• Human cost• Reputational cost• Filed in media databases – for the next time

The usual result?

And the next time something happens?

It doesn’t have to be this way

In June 2014 the entire US GA community came under attack from

“USA Today”

18th June, 2014, 6.00amReach: 5,300,000

18th June, 2014, 6.00amReach: 5,300,000

•Older aircraft lack safety gear •People die unnecessarily in post-crash fires •FAA “cost-benefit” approach to safety•Multi-million dollar lawsuits reveal damning evidence • Just 15% of small-aircraft crashes are investigated thoroughly.

18th June 2014, 5.15pmReach: 43,200,000 people

“Unfit for Publication: How USA Today Got Everything Wrong”

• “Nearly every inference about aviation in the article is wrong.• “The real story here is media bias and editorial malpractice, not the dangers of aviation or

manufacturing defects.• “The writing in the USA Today article is so transparently biased that the author draws

conclusions obviously inconsistent with his own presentation• “….headline is also terribly misleading, and the worst kind of journalism.• “In the absence of facts, smear with insinuation

“They got it wrong completely. Flying is relatively safe because we have made it so by managing inherent risk and minimizing operational risk; piling on manufacturers with exaggerated claims, bloated numbers and inaccurate conclusions does not help us advance toward a better record of safety. USA Today made itself part of the problem rather than contributing to the solution.”

19th June 2014, 6.00amThe world’s most widely-read aviation magazine

“Pilots, Aviation Leaders Blast USA Today Reporting”

• “….extremely flawed, sensational, one-sided and inaccurate.”• “….gets the general aviation safety record wrong, it ignores

efforts by the industry to make general aviation safer, and it violates basic tenets of fairness and accuracy when it comes to good journalism.”

• “Worst of all, pilots and aviation leaders said, the author of the article appears to have purposely gone out of his way to manufacture a crisis that doesn’t exist.”

FLYING

How to take the initiative?

Take the initiativeEmergency Communications Plans

Take the initiativeEmergency Communications Plans

Reliable spokespeople

Both need preparation

Emergency communications planning is not difficult.

Emergency Planning

1. Pay “experts” to write your plan..2. Do it yourself on your own…3. Ask someone like us to help you

do it yourself

Once you have a Plan?

Needs regular exerciseTrain management team

Reliable spokespeople

Advancing Blade Communications plan: expert witness service for the UK

rotorcraft community

In summary

Every helicopter business should have an emergency response and

communications plan.

In summary

That plan should be exercised and tested, and relevant people trained to

execute it

In summary

People like us can help put such plans in place

In summary

We are already planning to provide an expert commentator service to the

UK’s rotorcraft community

Two final thoughts

Few UK helicopter organisations have stand-alone plans for communicating

in a crisis.

After the event, they always say that communications was the hardest part

Scenario background• You are the board of directors of A-List Helicopters

Ltd.• You sell helicopters and related services (training,

maintenance, management) to high net worth individuals, especially celebrities.

• You are based at a small airfield in the Home Counties where you employ 22 people, 15 of whom are engineers preparing, servicing and maintaining helicopters.

Scenario background• Some of your customers fly their own aircraft;

others hire your pilots.• Some of the helicopters in your charge are available

for charter.• You have been in business since the mid-1980s.• Your business is successful.• You are perceived as reliable and straightforward

people to deal with; there has never been a scandal involving A-List Helicopters.

The Scenario• It is Friday, 5 June, 2015.• At 11.00am you receive a telephone call from a

man called Jeremy Johnson who says that he is a journalist at The Sun. He tells you that one of your customers, 26-year-old Simon Alliss (lead singer of the band "MF Good” which recently won television’s "Undiscovered Talent” show), was injured this morning when his new helicopter ”crashed” while attempting to land in his back garden.

The Scenario• Before being taken to hospital complaining of back pain,

Alliss managed to Tweet: "It all happened in a flash. The engine stopped and the next thing I knew I was bouncing on the ground and it all went a bit mad. It was only serviced last week, which cost a stupid amount of money".

• Alliss’s mum, who was watching him land, has told us "Si was driving the helicopter beautifully, and then there was this banging noise. His dad and I blame the mechanic at the helicopter garage. It can't be Si’s fault - he's a really careful pilot”.

The Scenario

Johnson asks you to comment:

1. What is your objective?

2. What are you going to say?

Facing the WorldPresenting the Facts in an Emergency

Andrew Healey & Christopher Wigdor Advancing Blade Communications

Questions?