Tom Mueller 0:06

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. We're very happy to have you back with us again today. And on this podcast, we share stories from the front lines of crisis management through interviews, storytelling, and lessons learned as shared by experienced crisis leaders. I'm Tom Mueller. With me again today, my co-host Mark Mullen. Mark Hi.

Marc Mullen 0:28

Hello, Tom, and happy to be back with you.

Tom Mueller 0:32

And it's good to see you again, Mark. Just a quick note, folks, if you want to reach out to the show, you can drop me an email at Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com. That's Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com. On our show today, we're going to focus on the crisis communications surrounding the American Airlines crash at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. At this point, we're about 36 hours out from that incident. So it's really just a hot take on the early crisis communications coming out of American Airlines and other responders who may be communicating about that. Our special guest today is Destin Singleton. Destin is a longtime corporate communications professional who now runs her own consulting firm. Destin, welcome to the podcast.

Destin Singleton 1:29

Well, thank you guys for having me. It's awesome to see you both.

Tom Mueller 1:33

Destin, take just a minute and give our audience a quick thumbnail of your uh experience and what got you to this point where you're now running your own consulting firm.

Destin Singleton 1:44

Yeah, so thank you. Um I have been um really in my 25-year career mostly in-house, um, corporate communications, mostly in the oil and gas industry. Um, and um, you know, uh oil and gas, another highly regulated industry, similar to um to uh airlines that have a high risk profile um and you know uh work hard to be prepared for um situations um and so uh, you know, uh just a very um difficult situation for Americans. Um so in my in my past, um I have uh worked for some of the largest oil and gas companies um on the globe, um, principally Shell and Marathon Petroleum, um, among some others. And I have uh had a little uh sprinkle of a PR firm there in my past as well. Um but back in 2019, um after a merger, um I left my role as external in prices communications in uh in an organization, and I decided it was time. Um I had a little seed money and I and I made it happen. Um and to my surprise, within three days, I had a client um and helping them with a very big um uh you know uh public consultation program. So um here I am, Imic Communications, um, and we're now five years in. And um IMIC actually uh has a little story behind it. So IMIC is an anthropology word. So I actually studied anthropology in school. Um and um and it basically means uh to communicate or to study something from the inside out. And you know, my little pitch um to my clients is typically that um I have been in your shoes and I'm uniquely qualified to immerse myself in your organization to help you communicate with the world around you. Um so that's uh that's me and Emmett Communications.

Tom Mueller 3:46

Okay, Destin, that's a terrific story, a backstory, I guess, for your company. It's Emic Communications EMIC, and you can check our show notes for more details on how to get in touch with Destin as we go. Okay, I want to dive in now, guys, and talk a little bit about uh the horrific incident that the folks at American Airlines find themselves dealing with today. And of course, it's something no company and nobody wants to ever deal with. Uh, but this is uh it's why we have crisis management and crisis communications plans, because sometimes bad things do happen to good companies. So, for our audience, what we're gonna do on this episode is we're gonna take a quick look at the American Airlines response plans and execution of that. And we're literally looking at it from the outside. How did they respond? Does it look like they had a plan? What did it look like? How did they perform to that? And then we're gonna talk about their early crisis messaging uh in terms of content and tone to get a sense for you know how prepared was the company to deal with a really, really bad situation like this. So to get started, uh let me just do you a quick overview of what happened. So the the collision occurred on uh January 29th, about 9 p.m. at uh Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. So it's nighttime. You have an American Airlines commuter flight, a little regional jet coming in on final approach, a military Black Hawk helicopter uh flying in the vicinity, and the two collided uh just over the Potomac River before the aircraft could uh reach the runway. As we understand it now, there were 67 people killed or likely killed in the incident, including 64 on the aircraft and three on the uh helicopter. So there is a you know, there's a lot for a company to deal with in a situation like that. And as we've talked to others on this podcast who've had to deal with large fatality type situations, dealing with families is a critical piece of that and so important. And we'll uh we'll talk about that here in just a little bit. But to get started, I want to kind of hand it to Mark. And uh Mark, as you've sort of looked at the early response from American Airlines on this, what's your assessment of how they're doing so far?

Marc Mullen 6:34

So there's there's no question that there's a high level of professionalism and commitment. And Tom, you're familiar with this in Destin, I think you probably have been too, where you are literally working through shock while you're doing your job. And it can be incredibly challenging. But uh from what I've seen, they've done very well at this. But I would expect that too, because you just don't run business like this without being ready for it.

Tom Mueller 6:59

Mark, thank you for for making that comment. It is uh it is tough on responders to deal with situations like this. And one of the things I'm curious about, maybe we can talk about that a little bit, is just, you know, it's been 11 years since there was a major aircraft disaster here in the United States. That's a long time to go without having to respond to an incident, right? So it gets to how sharp is the edge of your response team if they haven't had to deal with an actual incident for a long time. How about your crisis plans? Are they updated and tested? But let me just say, so far, having watched how American Airlines is responding to this, they had a plan in place and they executed against it very well. So uh kudos to the team so far. There's a long road ahead for them. Um, but uh I'm just uh impressed with what I've seen. They got their first statement out about an hour after the actual crash occurred. They had a CEO video done, dusted, and posted within two hours of the incident. And um that is uh inspiring to see that kind of a quick turnaround uh in terms of getting the the um communications out quickly. Yeah, it is. And of course, you know, in these types of aircraft um disasters, the companies are somewhat limited in what they can say because the NTSB takes over communications. And so there's kind of an early window here where the aircraft companies um can kind of communicate that. And I know we we had the CEO active early. Uh we know they mobilized their GO team to get to the scene of the response very quickly. They've activated uh the care team, which is intended to deal with families in situations like this. So we saw lots of action items getting rolled out very quickly on that.

Marc Mullen 9:12

That's suggests there's a there's a good physical response plan in place, and there's good communication discipline. A couple of things I've noticed over the first day and a half is that in a lot of incidents, this is where different parties involved in the operation start to say how they would have done it better. Or this is where you start seeing the memos brought up to light about maintenance problems and so on. And there just hasn't been any of that at every level. And there's a lot of moving parts in this, there are a lot of people involved, and and there's a media that that is doing their job and looking for something to talk about. Um, but there hasn't been any embarrassing facts shared yet from the from the airline.

Tom Mueller 9:59

So Justin, how long do you think it'll be before that happens?

Destin Singleton 10:03

Uh well, I'm I I I agree that with Mark that um surprised that it hasn't happened yet. So potentially um American is is you know really kind of living its values and doing that authentically. So it may not happen for them um in the same way that we may have seen in the past with um others that may have uh some some not trust built in the same way. Part part of what I was thinking about, Mark, what that you were just discussing, really they showed a lot of care and concern in their messaging, a lot of empathy and a commitment that goes far in in the earliest days of response. Yeah, you're not going to speculate about a cause, you're not going to be talking blame. Um, you're going to be focused on taking care of the people around you. The CEO did that very well, very in a very heartfelt way, um, in my opinion. And I would obviously um, you know, uh counsel all of my clients to do the same, that that is in the first 24 hours your main, um, your main focus, as well as you know, providing the facts. And I thought I thought they did that very well.

Marc Mullen 11:12

And one thing that can happen in a response is that um your values actually come across really quickly. It's almost, you know, the true corporate values are set almost at a subconscious level. And uh it shows up. You you get the the tone-deaf remark, you get the the um delays and so on, and and they've done a really good job with this. And it suggests that they've institutionalized their response plans and they've they know their customers, they know the impact of an accident, they've worked through that, which is good because a time like this, this is what you need. You don't need somebody flying off the handle or speculating at any level. And we saw a lot of that in this too by by the news media. They were they were looking for people to talk to. And you know, when you walk through somebody's apartment while they hold their laptop up out the window to show how they can see the police lights, you know, you you know that we've got a media that's really looking for stuff. And so again, the fact that that nothing's emerged is is is a good sign of commitment.

Destin Singleton 12:19

Yes.

Tom Mueller 12:20

Yeah, and the uh their early communications, uh, you know, they had a crisis website or a new crisis page on their website up very quickly, and a banner on the homepage uh for AmericanAirlines at AA.com to get people directly to that uh landing page where they could get uh directed to family care resources or just get the latest information. So we saw that up quickly. Again, because NTSB is the main communicator around these things, uh, we're not seeing a lot of different statements posted there. Uh in addition, then the company was active on Twitter and posting um the CEO videos and links to the videos on their Twitter feed and getting people you know directly to that source of information.

Destin Singleton 13:13

Um just to just to add to that, the the operator was a wholly owned subsidiary. Was it uh do you remember the acronym? PSSA. PSA, thank you. Um and there was discipline around PSA as well, meaning that uh there wasn't a separate site. Um, anytime you would try to find information from PSA as opposed to American, it was leading you to the same place. So just the discipline around making sure that that message was kind of one stop for stakeholders.

Marc Mullen 13:44

I'm sorry, there's something interesting in as we talk about their web presence and so on, and how you get to it. You go to American Airlines, period, like you're gonna book a flight, and you get this at the top of the screen. They're not minimizing it in any way. They are they're running, and to me, it's just a logical something like this. You don't put it on page four, you've got to take people to it right away. And again, there they've done a really good job because um they're they're they probably had Dart pages ready to go, and they and but they made the decision, they're gonna land on the front of our website. They're gonna land the first place people see us.

Tom Mueller 14:20

Yeah, and something worth noting here as well this, you know, the incident occurred about 9 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. Again, they're call out procedures to get people mobilized. It all looks like it happened very quickly and efficiently to get things done. Again, all that points to the fact that they have a plan in place and we're able to execute on that plan quickly.

Destin Singleton 14:44

Yeah. And can I add on on the care team? I I when it was reading about this, I found it really just a very interesting, again, kind of living the values. Um the care team is apparently uh a volunteer self-identified program for staff. So if you are interested in this, you are part of the care team, and dependent upon where an incident may happen, you can self-deploy. Um, and this would be accept pilots or mechanics, you know, for um so that in case they are needed, but really just a group of you know self-identified employees that are there and trained to support family. It's that's it's an incredible um thing and obviously well well prepared for and practiced and they deployed in Kansas and in DC that evening. It's it's an incredible, and it's an incredible plan.

Tom Mueller 15:39

It is, and you're looking for empathetic individuals, right, who could uh you know, who can muster um the appropriate emotional support to deal with families who are just facing you know the worst possible news. Yeah.

Destin Singleton 15:54

And another um uh thing I noticed that was pushed, um, I had seen this written on on a blog, uh uh, so uh I can't confirm it myself, but essentially that uh American had released a memo very quickly as well that said, hey, let's not market our credit cards right now to everyone, right? Like let's pause. And so, like really kind of thinking about the broader perspective of how the company's reputation could be perceived during an incident. Um, of course, that is hard, you know. So a memo in and out internally, it's hard to actually make things happen really quickly, but um, you know, in on the ground, but they had that as part of their plan and they implemented that quickly. Um, and so I think you're just seeing all around that they had a well-rehearsed, well-prepared plan, and um they they didn't need to dust it off. They had it ready.

Tom Mueller 16:48

What I'd like to do next, you guys, is just let's play a bit of the um CEO's initial statement, and let's just listen to sort of the content and tone of that to give us a feel for uh you know how that went went out. And again, uh as Mark is cueing that up for us, the the fact that they got that out in two hours, done and dusted, uh, is pretty incredible. Uh there is precedent for that, though, because Southwest Airlines had a similar quick response in 2018 when they had an in-flight emergency from a f uh on a flight from Philadelphia where the uh one of the engines exploded in flight, shrapnel punctured the cabin and uh killed a passenger uh who was sitting uh in that window seat. Uh, Southwest Airlines was again mobilized their teams very quickly, had a CEO video up within I think four hours uh after the incident. So let's take a listen now to uh Robert Isom, who's the CEO of American Airlines, in his initial statement.

Robert Isom, CEO American Airlines 18:02

Hello everyone. I'm Robert Isom, the CEO of American Airlines. I want to brief you on a serious act of effort involving an American Eagle aircraft. The aircraft was operated by PSA Airlines, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines. First and most importantly, I'd like to express our deep sorrow about these events. This is a difficult day for all of us at American Airlines, and our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, partners, first responders, along with their families and loved ones. I know that there are many questions, and at this early stage, I'll not be able to answer all of them, but I do want to share the information I have at this time. American Eagle Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines, a CRJ 700 aircraft traveling from Wichita, Kansas to Washington Reagan National Airport, has been involved in an accident near Washington, D.C. It appears to have collided with a military aircraft on approach. Flight 5342 was under the command of four crew members and carried 60 passengers for a total of 64 people on board. We are actively working with local, state, and federal authorities on emergency response efforts, and the American Airlines care team has been activated to assist our passengers and their families. We're cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation, and we'll continue to provide all the information we can. Our cooperation is without a pause, and we want to learn everything we can about today's event. That work will take time, but anything we can do now, we're doing. And right now, that means focusing on taking care of all passengers and crew involved as well as their families. Members of our Go team will be on their way to Washington, DC, and I'll be heading there shortly as well. We know that many people will be concerned for the welfare of their loved ones, and we've set up a special helpline. Friends and family can call at 1-8800-679-8215. That's 1-800-679-8215. If you believe you've had friends or family on board American Eagle Flight 5342, we understand and appreciate that people are eager for information. Please know that we'll continue to share accurate and timely information as soon as we can. But anything we must report must be accurate, and we owe that to everyone involved. Our team of highly trained professionals will be working around the clock to support our passengers, crew, and their families however we can, and we'll update you as soon as we can. Thank you.

Tom Mueller 20:50

Boy, what a just a wonderful tone to that message. Dustin, as you listened to that, uh what was your assessment of sort of the content and tone of the CEO statement?

Destin Singleton 21:04

Let's talk, I guess, tone first. He's so calm and and um but also somber. So I just found his calm presence uh comforting, and I hope um I hope that others did too.

Tom Mueller 21:18

Just on tone tone there for a minute, Destin. You know, when you're when you're coaching senior executives in a situation like this, you find some leaders who are naturally empathetic people, others who are not. From what we're hearing, it sounds like Mr. Isom was is fairly empathetic and connected well in this instance.

Marc Mullen 21:41

It's remarkable discipline. That that was released at 10:55 p.m. So it was it was within two hours of the incident. And then they went from a normal evening at home with a you know, don't know what he was doing to to doing that. And and so it was um You mentioned earlier on about the emotions and the stress flowing around at that time, but you wouldn't see that. You wouldn't know that from watching the video. You did a great job of landing early and quickly and and obviously good coaching and somebody wrote all that too. So just a good job all around.

Tom Mueller 22:19

Yeah, absolutely. Dustin, go ahead. You had something else to add on that tone?

Destin Singleton 22:24

Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, it seems like a green screen. So um I was just kind of thinking about, you know, when when um any of uh us have been deployed, you know, the the uh the cortisol that's going through your body, right? Um and how how did he overcome, right? That's that's pretty um pretty impressive. Um and a good, really good example of kind of golden hour um crisis messaging. Um we talked a little bit earlier about like really um highlighting empathy, um, you know, focused on highlighting the, you know, that they're working with authorities, that they're there um and committed, um and um and highlighting the the actions that they're taking. Um so really just you know, textbook um uh kind of uh, you know, that again, that first response. And then as we as we said before, just being able to follow follow that up, you know, the next day he did a similar message um that built upon it, but with very same um tone and calm and commitment.

Tom Mueller 23:34

Again, I think Mr. ISM did a nice, a nice job channeling who is my audience for this message. What are they feeling right now and how can I support them as they're going through this? So it's really audienced focused communications and delivering messages with a tone that really communicated he understood the audience that he was talking to.

Destin Singleton 24:00

He has definitely practiced this. You can see the polish. Um, and that I'm you know, as as we discussed earlier, there is a well-orchestrated plan here. Um, and that includes ensuring that your spokespeople are ready to face this. And it's super clear that that American did a good job in doing so. But but uh the CEO in particular, very impressed with his ability to do that.

Tom Mueller 24:26

Real quickly, I just I made a note here looking at a press conference that the mayor of Washington, D.C. hosted uh on the the morning following the incident. And it was a unified command type press conference where you had uh government officials, we had elected officials, NTSB, uh you had Senator Kane from Virginia speaking there. So it was a real mix. But this is a logistics point. The audio for that press conference, as I watched it on YouTube after the fact, uh, was not very good. And it surprised me because I saw all these microphones stood up on the podium, uh, but yet there was one very long-stemmed microphone that stuck way back. And so the speakers were speaking into that long-stemmed microphone from the podium. And unfortunately, all the press microphones were you know 18 inches away from the speaker, and so they didn't do a great job of picking up that audio. And of course, the lesson from that is uh use a moltbox or you know, make sure you don't have that kind of distance. Um, I contrast that with an MTSB press conference also later in the day. They had a single microphone on the podium and all the media were connected into that single microphone through a multiple moltbox. So one of those press conference logistics issues that needs to be carefully considered and thought about when you're doing these things. And that's gonna do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. We really appreciate you spending your time with us here. If you like what you're hearing, then please like and subscribe to the podcast and give us a five-star rating and please tell your friends and colleagues about us. And we'll see you again soon for another episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast.