When a passenger jet first heads into trouble, teams of airline workers spring into action to deal with human and technical emergencies-and with the lasting effects on the airline`s public image.
While the first concerns must be the immediate and sometimes catastrophic effects of a crash, airline officials know that the way they handle their public response to disaster will affect their company and industry, which depends on trust as well as competence, for years to come.
The flight of United Airlines 232 from Denver to Chicago was no exception.
A senior United executive staged a televised press conference within four hours after the crash in Sioux City, Ia., expressing compassion for survivors and passengers` families, but refusing to speculate on casualties and events surrounding the accident. The approach frustrated newsmen probing to find the cause of the crash and eventually angered some relatives of people feared dead, who have complained that United has lagged in providing information about casualties.
When questioned at the first press conference Wednesday evening about simple details such as the flight`s departure time, United senior vice president Lawrence Nagin declined any comment.
When pressed about the problems aboard Flight 232 leading to the crash, Nagin said only, ”It was an in-flight emergency that occurred, but that`s obvious.”
Public relations experts interviewed by The Tribune said it was the first of several steps that eventually served United well, though some criticized United`s flat refusal to provide basic information.
First, the experts said, United responded promptly. Second, United gave out no misleading information, even if executives declined to say everything they knew. And third, United Chairman Stephen Wolf flew to the crash scene and met with many victims and families.
”It was a time for humanity, and that showed concern,” said Mary Lou Hedlund, an executive with Hill & Knowlton, a public relations firm. She contrasted Wolf`s visit with the much criticized absence of Exxon Chairman Lawrence Rawl in Alaska after the Valdez oil spill in March.
In the immediate aftermath of an airline crash, the foremost goal of a corporate public relations team should be to contain speculation about the number of casualties and events surrounding the crash, public opinion experts agree.
Early speculation often is proved wrong. But first reports, often repeated, stick in the public`s mind, no matter how erroneous they turn out to be.
The best way to dampen speculation, however, is debatable.
A case in point was the August, 1987, crash of a Northwest Airlines MD-80 in Detroit. With company officials evasive and unavailable for extensive questioning early on, the tragedy became linked in early press reports to possible employee sabotage.
Though the accident later was found to be the result of pilot error in operating wing flaps, the public perception that sabotage was involved lingered for months and hurt the airline.
A crucial part of every big carrier`s operating plan is an elaborate set of procedures in case of disaster. The plans are so detailed that they specify hotels where passengers` family members will be taken in each city served by the airline and name personnel assigned to stay with families.
Airline workers keep briefcases packed with necessary emergency forms and even rolls of quarters for making telephone calls at the site of an accident. About once a year, the carriers stage fire drills by staging mock accidents. Sometimes employees aren`t told until afterward whether such events are real or fictional.
”Big airline companies generally get gold stars in crisis communications,” Hill & Knowlton`s Hedlund said. ”Exxon has a crisis plan and never tests it. United and other airlines test theirs regularly.”
United`s efforts last week generally followed the book. Initially, the airline damped down all speculation and was rewarded with better-than-expected news as facts became available.
”United didn`t give out false or misleading information early,” said Bob Keyser, a former public relations executive at McDonald`s Corp. and now a consultant. ”You went to bed thinking many people had perished and you woke up to the reassuring news that many people had lived.”
”United came forward quickly and told people why they couldn`t answer their questions,” said Hedlund. ”That gave them credibility.”
Shielding the privacy of survivors and family members is an objective that rankles the press but gets high marks with victims and generally with the public.
At one point, United workers staged a ruse to keep survivors arriving at O`Hare International Airport from a mob of reporters and onlookers. Reporters were told the survivors would arrive at a gate near the end of one of its concourses.
After the press corps had staked out the gate, Andy Frain ushers and United workers quickly sealed off another gate at the opposite end of the concourse, where the survivors disembarked.
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The survival of nearly two-thirds of those aboard, including the three-member cockpit crew, paved the way for a deluge of upbeat stories. The public was given a hero to applaud-Flight 232 Capt. A.C. ”Al” Haynes-and tales of miraculous escapes from the smoldering wreckage.
While little information was available in Chicago, there were accounts and estimates of casualties available at the scene of the crash in Sioux City from eyewitnesses, survivors, the Federal Aviation Administration and even city officials.
”United told too little at first,” said Matthew Gonring, USG Corp. communications executive who formerly worked for United and Northwest Airlines.
”When that happens, the news media gravitates toward sources outside the company. Better to have information come from qualified sources than let bystanders speculate,” Gonring said.
”There were facts that were available at the time. The rule of thumb is telling it all and telling it fast.”
United officials defend their refusal to immediately tell all they knew.
”We knew information about the aircraft and what the pilot said was going to be the central focus of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation,” said Russell Mack, United`s vice president of corporate communications.
”Our policy is not to discuss information which properly should come out of the investigation process,” Mack said.
Mack said the carrier attempted to release as much information as possible within the boundaries of this policy. He said Flight 232`s departure time was given to reporters early on, though Nagin might not have had the information at hand during the press briefing.
”There`s an enormous hunger for information at these times. If you rush to fill in with anything at hand, you can wind up making serious mistakes,”
said Mack.
After waiting two days for definitive news, some family members of passengers missing and presumed dead spoke out in anger over what they believed was United`s reluctance to share information about the fate of their loved ones.
The airline declined to provide complete lists to the press until the coroner in Sioux City positively identified bodies, a process that can take days or weeks. Complete listings were unavailable late Friday.
”We begin contacting families right away after the accident,” United`s Mack explained. ”We tell them if the passenger is on the list of those unaccounted for and feared dead.”
It sometimes takes a day or more for an airline to comfirm the exact number of passengers aboard a flight because a count of non-paying passengers, such as infants or off-duty airline employees, might not be immediately available.