Well, Elle, thank you so much. This has been very insightful.
What we thought might be really helpful for our audience is if we actually went to a scenario. Now,
it's a notional scenario,
but it' will help to provide a bit of a framework, a more real world framework, to contextualize
what we've just spoken about today and attach that to something that is realistic, that our operators will be
very familiar with. So, um,
can we' run through that in a little bit of detail, and would you mind applying some of your lessons
learned, best practices,
and even some of the regulatory requirements if they
do indeed exist, and how those will be associated with. this p- with this scenario?
Sure. So, we can walk through that, and as we walk
through that, I want, um, the operators listening or watching this, this video to really interrogate
their own plans and procedures. Because- Yeah ... the scenario is great, but I really
want you to be able to walk away from this presentation thinking,
"If there's three things that I, when I get back to my desk, I can go and check or update,"
then I think our job hasn't
really been done yet. So as we walk through this scenario and, um, John, you talk us through it, I
want, um, the listeners to, uh, think about you've got to know the challenges- Yeah ... that you're gonna be
faced with. You know what needs to be done. Um, you know who is going to do it in your
team. Um, and you know how they are going to do
it. So it's, it's who's doing it. If they're not available, who's their deputy,
and how are they going to do it? Do I have a checklist that sets out? And we, you
mentioned earlier, you can't really do this for every eventuality. Yeah. But you can do it for the most likely
scenarios. So let's dive into our scenario, John.
Absolutely. All right. I think the audience,
many will be familiar with this type of a scenario. In fact, they've probably even flown this route. So
today we'll be talking about a Gulfstream
GC, G650ER, um, operating at a Part 91. They'll be flying from Teterboro
in the United States, ultimately landing in Le Bourget
in France. So you can see here, we've got a number of passengers on board to including the CEO and
some
of his guests, and three crew members, two pilots and a flight attendant.
So the purpose
of this trip, as with quite a few corporate travel itineraries, is to go to a high-profile industry conference in
Paris. So here are some conditions, something to think about. Probably many operators have seen something
similar to this, right? Changing weather environments, different times
of day, different challenges that are presented to you as an operator when you're flying into even locations that you've
probably flown into multiple times that you're
well familiar with.
But nonetheless, this will all be part of that pre-flight planning process. You'll know this
in advance, but it's always so good to understand how that might affect what ultimately could or could not happen
that leads up
to an incident. Is it maybe also worth mentioning here, sorry, I'm de- derailing-
Yeah, no, no, that's all right ... your scenario, is I think it's worth mentioning under the Contingency 360 service
that you guys do, uh, flight following too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Um, so with MedAire's,
with MedAire's Contingency 360 program that will be, um, offered to our clients,
some of the things that you'll be able to do, and hopefully develop better situational awareness
around, is being able to better flight follow your aircraft from point of departure to point of arrival, monitor potential
deviations, and hopefully gain a bit more situational awareness in the lead up to a potential incident or even a
mishap. So this will help give you, as an operator, a bit more visibility of how you might need to
start marshaling those resources
as an accident or a mishap has occurred. So you could perhaps see that, that the, the aircraft has deviated
or has gotten into dis- some,
you know, difficulty,
dropped in altitude- Yeah ... or whatever that A- absolutely, and MedAire for, you know,
40 years, part of our, our flagship service has always been the in-flight medical
service, known as MedLink, and oftentimes if the scenario is significant enough medically
speaking, we have made recommendations for diversion. So it could be something like a medical
diversion, maybe it's a mechanical diversion, or perhaps there's something that has resulted in ano- another deviation unknown as of
yet
to the home base operator. But the program may allow for some additional insight into- Okay ... uh, to
what's occurring. All right. Thank you, John. Sorry I've interrupted- No ... your scenario.
No, that's
all right. Um, so here are some of the sequence of events. So you can see as you work through
this, we're essentially setting up the notional incident
here. What ultimately ends up happening is the aircraft continues into
Le Bourget. Fundamentally, there's a bit of a hard landing,
gear collapses, and then upon collapse there's a post-crash fire. That fire unfortunately then, well, the impact plus the
fire results unfortunately in a few fatalities as part of this incident, and some injuries
to, um, the crew and the passengers.
And you can see what that tally
is here. We've got two fatalities immediately following the incident. We have three passengers with serious injuries,
and then we have another passenger with
fatal in- injuries that transpire after that individual has been transported to a medical facility.
All right. So, El, do you wanna talk through a few of the things that our audience should consider
as the response process begins? Okay. So let's, let's look at how it, it could potentially unfold. So zero
to one hours, um, your immediate activation. I want you to think about how is your plan set up to,
to activate your emergency response plan. Yeah. So of course there's the notification of the accident, confirming the accident
through air traffic control and French authorities in this scenario. Um,
and then how, how does that call-out tree work? How do
you get notified of the accident and then follow and activate your emergency response
plan? Um, one of the first things, of course, is to, um, uh, notify the, the authorities. If you're originated
from the US, it's the National Transportation
Safety Board.
Um, in
this scenario, uh, or in this checklist
it says, "Contact the CEO or the board,"
um, but in our scenario, the CEO- Yeah ... was on board the aircraft. So
think about if your CEO is either on board or out of reach,
um, you know, what is the contingency
built in for that? Absolutely. Because
if, if the CEO is on charge, obviously... or on board, obviously
that individual can't be part of the response and the recovery process. Absolutely. So is there a deputy
or is there somebody else who's already been spelled out in advance as part of that process to make
sure that there's some sort of continuity of leadership and direction? Exactly.
Okay. Yes. Um, and I also, my test is always if something happens
tonight- Indeed ... um, and think about the 3:00 AM phone call. Because if you test that, think about
what's going to happen at 3:00 AM tonight with your organization, um, and, and sort of use that as
a bit of a, a quick litmus test about where you are in your response capabilities.
Um,
and then
the step next to that is to think about freezing your internal records, crew maintenance, um, flight data, things like
that.
Yeah. Um, and that's where I always go, "One of your first phone calls is, you know, your legal
team. They need to help and guide you through
what you need to do." Um, and then a big decision, is this a fleet issue? Is this an individual
issue? Is this something that, um,
you need to make a, a decision around,
um,
uh, you know, a precautionary stand down or, um, suspension of any other flying? Yeah, absolutely. And let me revert
back to the legal question. Um, because I would imagine this is probably critical as part of that
process when you're designing and implementing the ERP, is to make sure that legal is involved in the beginning. Because
legal counsel, depending on the size of your organization, they may not have much knowledge around aviation. So it's
probably important to be able to speak to them about the particulars of an aviation operation,
nomenclature, the regulatory environment, how
that works, so that they can help guide you during this process rather than learning while they're going through the
process. 100%. These relationships before something goes wrong is absolutely-
Yeah ... vital. You don't want to scramble and call, um, a lawyer at the time.
You want to work
with your lawyer. Um, and I'll give a quick plug to Mark Dombroff at Fox Rothschild, because he, um, we
work with him. He's also on, you know, on, on our board. Um,
uh, you know, he's the kind of guy, he always says, "I don't wanna meet
you,
um, on the day."
Indeed.
Um, to, to have them, to have a relationship,
um, to retain them, to involve them in your exercises is so important because you don't want
to be caught on the back foot on the day. You need to be able to know exactly who you're
gonna call, and you would have ha- practiced some of these scenarios beforehand, um, and knowing how they're gonna
Yeah ... So whether it's outside counsel or inside
counsel- Yes. Yeah, exactly ... the same, the same idea applies. Yeah, exactly. Um, all right. One to three hours,
um, it says verify your passenger manifest. Um, this is an interesting one because smaller operators will usually say, "We
know exactly who's on board our aircraft." Yeah. Um, but we've responded to an accident, uh, about two, three years
ago. It was, uh, a helicopter. It had, um, three people on board, the pilot and two VIPs.
Um, one of them was, uh, uh, a
billionaire. And, um, a- another situation where the brand, um, of the person was overtaking and overshadowing and, and really
getting the media attention.
Um, but with that came, um, conspiracy
theories.
Um, and
we really thought there was three people on board, and only several hours after
did the operator
manage to, to confirm that the third person never
boarded. Wow.
So don't assume that that's some information that you'll be able to get quickly.
Um, so but make sure that that is a process, that you know how you're
gonna do it, um, because the authorities will want to know who was on board that
aircraft, date of birth, nationality, passport numbers, things like that. That's a great
point. Um, identify next of kin contact. Um, from what we spoke about earlier, that's probably one of the most
important
things that we wanna do, is to as quickly as
possible reach out to the
loved ones, um, of people on, you know, uh, involved in an incident or accident to start providing
them with the information and the care that they deserve.
Um, coordinate with authorities. We spoke
about that earlier. Um, you need, as a responder, I've always said you really need to
be,
um,
a diplomat,
um,
before anything else, because you may have to arrive on site where you don't have the relationship with authorities.
You need to get a seat at the table. You need to share information and gather information from
them. So to get there quickly and establish those relationships,
um,
uh, is quite important to your response.
Um, it mentions here your holding
statement. Um, I would generally bump that up a little bit earlier. If you've got your crisis communications
plan ready to be able to issue a holding statement to say, "We are aware of reports that
one of our aircraft might have been involved in an incident,"
that is really a way that you can establish yourself very early on as a credible source of information,
um, to the media and
the families. So issue that pretty quickly. Yeah, absolutely. And it's probably important to make sure that this is
all done in advance and coordinated if there is indeed a corporate function where-
PR might want to be the centralized point of contact for that type of holding
statement- Yes ... because it may not necessarily come from the flight department, correct?
No, absolutely. So your comms team will be heavily involved. Yeah. And that's another bit that I would say,
as part of your ERP, you need to have a, a, a crisis communications plan as well,
and they need
to talk to each other. Um, and it's really important to practice that all together at the same time because
you have, um, we always say, "Say what you do and do what you say." So we've had incidents
and accidents and crises around the world
where,
um, PR,
um, or the comms team have got really beautiful messages that they send
out, but it doesn't necessarily correspond with what's happening on the ground. Indeed. Or the e- the, the statements get
issued before people
on the ground, um, uh, understand
what's being said, so then they are faced with families asking
questions that was in the media that your responders on the ground didn't know about. So you want to really,
really coordinate the messaging, um, within your organization,
um, and have them ready and approved
beforehand. Yeah. And I would imagine having that harmonization back to, um, corporate headquarters or the larger part of the
organizational structure is gonna be immensely important as well- Mm ... to make sure that, to your point, you know
who's doing what, what that message
says, and how this is coordinated across the board. So doing that well in advance is absolutely
critical. And as we've, as we've highlighted,
um, the ERP, it might be exclusive to just the flight department, but it's absolutely important to tie that
into potentially other crisis plans,
business continuity plans- Yes ... and make sure that that whole process is aligned. Yes,
exactly, especially in the b- in the business world. Yeah. You may have your flight operation
have their plans, but it forms very, you know, part
of a bigger, um, corporate crisis
plan. So it's really aligning all of those is important.
Um,
the next, uh, uh, uh, point there is decision to sending leadership to site. So base practice is really
visible leadership- Mm-hmm ... in terms of a big incident or accident.
So you want to think about sending
someone out. In this case, it's in
France. Um, so the... And I'm not a lawyer, so I'll come- I'll, I'll sort of
say this with a bit of a
caveat. Um, but there is, um, in France, I believe there'll be a criminal investigation that is alongside the technical
investigation. So you need to understand the legal world that, that you're going to enter. Um, are you sending
your leadership? Who are you sending, or are you sending a representative
only? Um, you know, what does that look like? And if you are sending your CEO, who's gonna help
you run the, the, the rest of your organization? Absolutely. Or in this case, where the CEO is one of
the victims- Of course ... who is that proxy or who is
that- Exactly ... individual that's been i- Yeah ... identified to pick up the reins? Exactly,
yeah. Um, so the next three to six hours, um, family first.
Always, always affected people. Yeah. Whatever you do, um, keep them in the forefront of
your mind. Um, so here, direct next of kin notification.
Um,
I want to mention here that, um, it is really known that the person who gives
you, um, the bad news, the deliverer of the bad news, their voice will forever resonate. I'm
sure. So it may be worth thinking about, you know, some businesses I know, these are our people.
I know the wife. We know sh- some of...
We've had, um,
operators where the wife works
in the, you know, works in the flight department and has for many, many years. So those type of notifications,
you may really, really wanna do that in-house. Um, but it may be really worth in your training program,
those people who are going to make those notifications to have the training to do
so. And then if they do it, do it perhaps alongside
a professional and give them the mental health support afterwards because it's a very difficult phone call to make. Yeah.
That's
excellent. Um, but we do need to, to notify them. And when I say notification, I'm
very careful. It is notification of involvement.
It is not notification of,
um,
uh, uh, whether they, you know, the status of the,
um- I see ... of the person. That's an important
distinction. Yes. Yeah, very much so.
Um, then you've gotta think about everything that needs to be arranged, um, logistics of flying the families in,
securing, um, travel and accommodation, perhaps
visas, um, medical liaison, uh, liaison with the, um, uh, with the injured,
um, trauma counseling services.
You know, all of the logistics of getting the families in and out of the country to,
and, and how long they're gonna
be there for is, um, what you need
to think about.
Um, and then prepare for your internal employee communications. You know,
I have really
seen, um, two sides
of,
uh, an, uh, an incident where your employees can be the biggest advocates for your organization,
um, in times
of, uh, incident or accident or crisis, whatever that may be. I know we're talking here specifically about an accident.
Um, but they can be your advocates. They fly the flag for your organization.
Um, and it can also be the opposite. So if you had
a culture which is quite toxic or, you know, that gets exposed in, um, in bad times.
So if you've got a
wonderful, healthy, um, uh, collaborative culture in your organization, it really serves you well.
Um, but one of the key things is to communicate with your staff, keep them up to
date, keep them in the loop. Um, this is their work family. This is their brand. This is, you know,
you, you think about how much time you
spend at work, um, they really need to also know- Yeah ... what's going on. That's an excellent point. And
I think you've mentioned this, uh, but I think it's worth touching on
again. You highlighted that sometimes the brand of the individual, and in this instance perhaps it's a CEO that's well-known
in one capacity or the other,
that starts to overshadow even the incident itself. So it's probably even more important to make sure that that spokesperson,
the statements,
all of this is aligned to make sure that you can communicate effectively here and ensure that everybody's
being taken care of the way they should be,
despite how that individual might,
that, de- despite how that individual might actually
be, um, categorized in the press in comparison to what's happened
here actually- Um, from an accident standpoint. Exactly. And when you, when we talk about spokesperson, um, we talk about
the spokesperson who will be briefing the families, and it might not always be the same person,
um, versus the spokesperson who will be addressing the media. I see. Um, and it's also very important that
the, the message of, um, of the
operator is, "Our concern lies with the people on board and the affected people
and their loved ones. Um, this is how to reach us. This is
what we are doing. Um, and of course, we are invest- we are supporting the investigation." Yeah. Um, but it's
very, very, um, hard, like we say, the... if the, if the brand of the person
is bigger, um, than the accident, that all media attention can go
to, um,
to that- They do ... um, as opposed to we need to really focus here on everybody that was involved
and all the families that have been affected. Yeah, so the situation compounds. Exactly. We, we do have to
make sure that of course we, um, we, we know that in the case of VIPs, there's, uh, there's perhaps
extra
complexities, but we mustn't seem
to be given any prefer- preferential care for the, the families, irrespective of, of who, who they are. Absolutely.
It's an important facet.
Exactly, yeah. Um, oh, there's a me- a point at the end, um, prepare for an influx of media inquiries.
We spoke about that earlier.
Um, but, uh, I've seen, um, the communications person
of an organization say, "Yes, we'll just, you know, give my t- my mobile
number out, um, to the media," and I really wanna,
uh, whenever I hear that, just say, please just think about this very, very carefully, because you may be
absolutely
inundated. Issue a media number that is specific for media inquiries. Have a little team that finds out who's the
person calling, who do they represent, what's their deadline,
what's their questions, and then as a team,
um, with your comms specialists, um, decide, are we going to just issue our standard statement? Are we going
to address this specific, um, inquiry? Are we going to meet with this, um, media for an interview? Absolutely.
And is that something that GoCrisis can help with? 'Cause I would imagine some operators may not have the internal
capacity to set up and sustain a function like that. So is that something where GoCrisis can help with media
communications, establishing a call center, that single point of contact? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I say this also
with, um, with caution because we always say to our clients, "It is your accident. It is your aircraft. It's
your passengers. It's your crew. It's
your brand." They have to own and manage and be in
control of that. Um, but we come with all the advice, all the experience, and all the resources to help
you navigate that, including the media.
Um, what we would always try and steer away
from is, um, is speaking for you on your behalf. I understand. You really need to own that.
We can brief you, we can guide you, we can
do, uh, the moderation at the time, and we can set
up the media, uh, um, uh, conferences for you. We can do everything. We can
gather the media,
um, uh, you know, the, the influx of media inquiries. We can do
everything that involves the search capacity that you
need to have, but ultimately, you need to stand there as, as the leadership of your organization and represent your
brand. Absolutely.
Um, six to 24
hours, um, CEO message to the employees. So in this scenario, let's imagine the CEO,
um, he, he survived and
he- He did ... in our, in our scenario. But, but we can assume potentially incapacitated or something that would
preclude the individual from actually being able to issue- Yes ... the message. So whether it is the CEO, let's
say if we have a, a situation where
he is, you know, speaking from his hospital bed, that could be an incredible message that goes out. Um,
or if he doesn't, who
is his deputy? Um, but that, um, message to employees from the CEO, um, if it could be, you know,
a, a,
a letter that is signed, um, by whoever the person is to thank them for their support and to encourage
them, because often employees may not wanna operate the aircraft or they are severely affected, and we do wanna support
them, but we also wanna encourage them to help us continue our
operations. Um, activate, um, Paris on-site response
teams. So, um, by six to 12 hours, I would expect that
a go team, um, that consists of humanitarian teams, and we can support with that if, if you don't
have that in-house, um, which we call
our care team, your legal team, insurance, the investigat- uh, the investigations
teams, uh, or the engineer.
You know, they are on the aircraft
on the way, um, uh, en route by this time,
I would think. Um, or if, if it is us supporting the client, then we probably have boots on the
ground, um, as quickly as we possibly can.
Um, secure your crew training records. We touched on, on all of those
things. Um, and then prepare for the, um, the judicial
inquiry, um, and, uh, potential site access limitation.
Absolutely. And Elmire, in this scenario where the operator is likely an American-registered aircraft,
American
company, in an American-manufactured aircraft, the incident's
occurred in France. Who else can we expect that might be a party to this technical investigation or other elements
of this incident? So you can be sure that the NTSB-
Ah, okay ... and the manufacturer will be involved. Um, if it is a, um, it's usually the, the site
of
occurrence. I see. Um, then the st-
the, where the aircraft is
registered, um, and also the manufacturer that is involved, and of course the NTSB will be involved here. Um, which
is very reassuring in,
in, um, in situations when I hear that they're involved, that there's an elemant- element of, of reassurance
for me always.
Um, but
yes, uh, the, uh, they require, um, a lot of information from you,
um, so, uh, be ready to, to know what information to provide and your rights also as an operator. Absolutely.
So all the more important to make sure that in that ERP you
understand whatever your
country of registration, there may be an element, even if you've experienced an incident or a
mishap in another jurisdiction, there might be a reachback component. So you need to probably spell that out and make
sure that you have the ability to bring all of that information, documentation,
and be able to work in a multi-jurisdictional format. Yes,
exactly. And, and litigation may unfold in, in different countries
as well. Um, the last point there is, uh, access limitations to the site has actually, um,
reminded me of something to, uh, to talk
about, um, is, uh, we've had an accident, um, where we assumed, um,
that another lesson... We learn lessons all the time. We assumed that the police were securing the
site, and, um, they left the site unsecure overnight. It was a crash in a,
in a hillside, um, somewhere in Europe. And the, um, the police didn't secure the site. The pilot's wife walked,
she climbed up the hill, she walked onto
the crash site, and she picked up her husband's watch. Wow.
So one of the things that we really establish early on is securing that site. Is
it secure? Who is doing it? And to make sure that from the operator's
perspective, um, that, that if, if it's not done by authorities, that we need to think about that.
Yeah. Um, because, uh, obviously not only for, you know, for the investigation,
um, but also for the personal effects
which we need to go gather,
um, and hand back to the families. Absolutely. And I would imagine in some jurisdictions it's even more important because
if that sec- if that
site is not secure, could compromise the investigation.
You could have,
um, outside curious individuals potentially even going into that site and retrieving wreckage or other personal effects that,
um, that obviously
you would wanna make sure are either still part of the investigation or returned to the family eventually. Yeah. Exactly.
And in, in many parts of the world we have seen looting of the crash site. Yeah. So we, we
really need to make sure that we, um, take care of that.
That's a great point. Uh, 12 to 24 hours, um, families may arrive in
Paris. Um, and we have to think about, you know, how are they flying? Um, are we meeting
them at the departing station or as they arrive in Paris? Do we have someone that can help them navigate
locally, the language and, you know,
the, the environment
there? Um, establishing a family assistance center.
Some families may not want to
f- uh, fly to the center. So when I say family assistance center, I don't wanna assume people know exactly
what that is. But it is usually a hotel, um, that we, um, set up and it's got functional
areas.
So areas for the police to meet with the families,
um, areas for childcare, areas to provide briefing
for the families. Um, because remember, there could be quite a number of people flying
in. Um, so we set up the family assistance center where we, um, we provide all these different services and
support. But families might choose not to travel, and then they have to have access to the same information
and the same support in their own
communities. Um, so we need to set that up and, and make sure that everything's there and that it's secure
and that there's security also. Um, we need to know
who's there, um, and, uh, what information we are giving them. Um, con- uh, confirm insurance advance payments
for families. So remember earlier on I said one of the first calls that you would make- Yeah ... is
to your lawyer and your insurer.
Um, and, uh, in this instance that, you know, they start the process
of those, um, interim payments to families.
Um, and then the legal team prepares for US litigation exposure, 'cause remember
I said it doesn't matter where the accident happens. Absolutely. Litigation unfolds in different
parts. Um, and then your French civil or criminali- uh, criminal procedures.
And that brings us to the end. All right. Well,
thank you. And, uh, really, really appreciate this, Ann Marie. Really great information. I think quite a lot for our
audience to think through here. And I think also important to realize that the Go Crisis MedAir partnership and
some of the new programs that we are going to begin to offer, especially in the realm of Contingency
360, will really help operators of any size hopefully do a better job of being able to bring together
all of these complexities. Again, as we've talked
about, the eventualities that are out there are probably
multiple.
Mm-hmm. How do you account for everything? You probably can't. Yeah. The contingencies are
just too great. But you can do a lot to think through in advance what are some of the areas
where, from lessons learned, we can bring in those
best practices, create a better ERP, create a better system in advance for when and if we have to end
up activating our ERP to help make sure that we are taking care of not only the individuals directly affected
in that
incident, but all of those
affected in some adjacent manner
as well. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that if you have a good ERP
program, um, that involves your plans, your checklists, your roles, your structure,
your culture, um, you know, how you train, how you exercise, all of that
is in place, um, you will still meet a point, uh, where you are damned if you do and you
are
damned if you don't. Um, and what we always use as, um, as our
guiding light,
um, is, uh, if this was my family, what would they need?
Um, so if you think about the people most affected, um, what would they want your CEO to say
in the next media briefing? Who would they want to, um,
plan their flights? Who would they want to meet and greet them? What language would they want that
person
to speak? Um, what culture would they want that person
to be? Um,
you know, everything that you do, if you just think, "If this was my mom or dad, what would they
need?" you can be sure you will be doing
the right thing, and you'll be automatically taking care of your organization
too.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you again, Ann Marie. Thank you. I love working with you, John, and MedAir. Yeah. So thanks
for having me. Appreciate
it.