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ValuJet Flight 592: Crisis communication theory blended and extended

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Donald Fishman discusses the integration of three crisis communication approaches as it analyzes the crash of ValuJet Flight 592

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 11, 2024

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This video discusses the Value Jet Flight 592 disaster, which occurred in 1996, highlighting its significance within crisis communication. Value Jet was a discount airline that emerged as part of a new segment promoted by the FAA, which aimed to make air travel more affordable. However, the flight from Miami to Atlanta faced an electrical disturbance, resulting in a tragic crash over the Florida Everglades, leading to the deaths of all 110 people on board. The fire burned so intensely that remnants of the aircraft were virtually non-existent, complicating recovery efforts, such as locating the black box.

The author utilizes this crisis as a case study to explore theories of crisis communication, emphasizing the three necessary criteria for a crisis: sudden occurrence, a threat to important values, and a short response time. Additionally, the text outlines four stages of a crisis according to Stephen Fink's stage theory: prodromal (warning signs), acute (the actual crisis event), chronic (investigation and reform), and crisis resolution.

The discussion also incorporates strategy theory, particularly William Benoit’s strategies for managing reputation during a crisis, like denial, minimizing offensiveness, and corrective action. Furthermore, the narrative touches on the concept of focusing events—sudden occurrences that capture public attention and often lead to changes in perception or policy. The collapse of Value Jet serves as an emblematic case of poor safety oversight, illustrating how conflicting priorities within regulatory agencies can lead to tragic outcomes.

Ultimately, the text argues for a comprehensive understanding of crisis situations by combining insights from various theories, stressing the importance of preparedness and proactive crisis management, especially within organizations. The author advocates for the establishment of crisis communication managers and emergency preparedness plans to mitigate the impacts of future crises.

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Value Jett Flight 92 took off in 1996.

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What was interesting about Value Jett is

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that it was a discount airline.

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Uh, the FAA wanted to promote this whole new segment of

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air communica airline communication.

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And so Value Jet happened to be one of the poster children

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for this new line of airlines.

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Southwest was probably the most prominent one

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that has survived in that, unfortunately,

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having taken off in Miami

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and heading toward Atlanta,

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it had an electrical disturbance right away,

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and 110 people died over the Florida Everglades.

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The fire was so strong that you didn't have seats,

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you didn't have metal, you had virtually nothing on

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the Everglades.

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And looking for the black box was hard.

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And so the question became, how did this crisis occur?

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Who was responsible for it?

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And how do we explain it in this context?

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And so I used the Value Jet Airline crash

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as a vehicle for bringing together several theories

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and several elements of crisis communication.

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That was the context in which it occurred.

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A lot of people use the word crisis in sort

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of everyday language.

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And so newspapers love to talk about, crisis,

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and that we had a more specific notion of what a crisis is.

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Um, in order to have a crisis, you have

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to meet three criteria.

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One criteria is something occurs sudden.

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So a lot of problems occur

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because they're simmering, they simmer for a long time,

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and then they finally blow over.

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And that, for crisis to occur, something happens to have

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occur sudden, much like with the challenger disaster,

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where we had so many, shuttles that flew,

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routinely in that, but then you had a crash.

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So it has to be something that number one is sudden.

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Number two, it has to be a threat to important value.

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So you're on your way to work today, you have a flat tire,

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you pull off to the side.

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Is that a crisis? Well, it may be to you a traumatic event,

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but actually you pull out your phone, you call aaa

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or you call one of the, services.

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And that, it's just a distraction or a nuisance.

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A threat to important values has

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to really hit important values.

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I'll give you an example of a threat to important values.

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The University of Minnesota, had a basketball team

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that made the men's basketball bracket

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for the NCA tournament on the eve

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of their playing in the game, it was revealed that

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somebody had written papers

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for 15 basketball players on the team.

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Well, is this a crisis?

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Uh, there's nothing more important than academic life

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than academic integrity.

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And in fact, the team was pulled from the tournament.

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Uh, the basketball coach was eventually fired.

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The athletic director for women was fired,

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the athletic director for men

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and the vice president for, student affairs.

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And so, a crisis has to be a threat to important values.

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And the third element is that,

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there's a short response time.

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You don't have forever.

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With an airline crash, you usually have to get

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a message to the public,

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and it could be a standby message within four hours.

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And the message may say something like this,

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we haven't recovered the black box.

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We're not sure what happened,

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but we're looking for the black box.

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And as soon as we have any

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information, we'll relay it to you.

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And the reason you do this in the airline industry is

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that 20% of the public is scared of flying anyways.

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You've got another 30% that have anxieties.

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And so you have to calm a public that this was an atypical

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or an anomaly.

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Uh, but you don't wanna let a lot of time go

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by an academic life.

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When somebody attacks an article you've written,

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the response may be six months

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or a year later, that doesn't happen in a crisis situation.

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The response has to be immediate.

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So for a crisis to occur, we have three elements, surprise,

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threat to important value and a short response time.

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And those three constitute what we think of as a crisis.

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And there are crisis situations which have to be responded

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to for a long time.

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I used to go to a, we had crisis conferences.

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And the crisis conferences started

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after the Exxon Bel Ds, where you had academics.

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You had people who were government regulators,

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you had people from corporations.

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And we tell war stories.

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And the war stories would often be interesting.

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They often involve lots of people in that,

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but you didn't get a sense of how you could proceed.

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And so the academics started getting together,

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and we started talking about how do we explain these things?

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We could have 2000 war stories,

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but you haven't developed any principles.

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Eventually, out of these conferences, we developed several

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approaches to how to study a crisis.

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One approach, we'll call a stage,

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theory and stage theory.

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And there are several theorists.

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The one I like best is Stephen Fink.

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Uh, stage theory is really a natural history,

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evolution of a crisis.

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And natural history means something has a

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beginning, middle, and end.

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In the case of Stephen Fink, he's really got four stages

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that each crisis goes through.

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The first stage is something called the prodromal,

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or it's a Greek word, meaning running ahead.

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And he says that there are warning signs

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that run ahead of a crisis.

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In the case of the Challenger disaster,

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the o-rings had not sealed 19 times before.

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So there were warning signs

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and astute manager would've noticed there's a problem

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with the O rings, thicks the problem

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before it actually took off.

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The second stage fin is the acute stage.

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And the acute stage is where something happens.

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In the case of value, jet flight 5 92,

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the acute stage was the

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explosion over the Florida Everglades.

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The acute stage is often the shortest part of a crisis.

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In the case of values that it lasted about 10 days

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as they went on a scavenger hunt, looking for the bodies,

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looking for the black box.

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The third stage is the a chronic stage.

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And the chronic stage is

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where you investigate what happened.

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You make changes along the way. You implement reforms.

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Oftentimes you fire managers and that,

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and this is the longest of the four stages.

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And then the crisis resolution.

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And the definition of a crisis resolution for f is

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that the company has made whole again.

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And so the company has made whole,

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and you start looking for new prodromes along the way.

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So the four stages for Fink were, the prodromal,

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the acute, the chronic, and the crisis resolution.

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That's a natural history. There were other stage theorists.

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The stage theory is a really useful way

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of thinking about a crisis.

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A second approach, a very different orientation,

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is strategy theory.

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And the strategy theory that I like best is William Benoit.

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And strategy, theory is centered on reputation and image.

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Uh, much like economics is designed,

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to talk about profit maximizing activity.

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In communication, we're concerned with

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reputation maximizing activity.

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And so either an individual

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or an organization has a reputation that they wanna protect.

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And Benoit says that

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a crisis occurs when there's an attack on your reputation.

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Somebody has said something offensive

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and that it hits you directly.

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And for him, there are five strategies in which you can

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minimize or, reduce, excuse me,

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the attack, one of the strategies is called just denial.

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Uh, whatever you said is not true. Uh, it's false.

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I didn't do it. And so, a variation

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of denial is, scapegoating.

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Yeah, it was done, but was done by somebody else.

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Uh, it wasn't me. And so denial is one strategy.

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Second strategy is reducing the offensiveness where you try

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to reduce the offensiveness of it.

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Uh, and here you can use minimization.

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You can use displacement.

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There are various things that you can use in order to,

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reduce the offensiveness of it.

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A third is invasion of responsibility.

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Uh, where you try to show that you had a good intentions

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or an accident occurred,

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or his most interesting,

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variation is the feasibility.

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Things just got out of control.

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Uh, and the Exxon Ved, the weather was calm for three days

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and then the weather was bad,

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and you couldn't bring in an easy rescue crew.

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And so, that became part of

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re evasion of responsibility.

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Uh, the nice fourth category is a corrective action.

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And here's where people make cor corrections or reforms.

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You implement measures so that it won't happen again.

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And his stiff category is apologies or mortification.

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Here you express regret.

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You express, problems along the way.

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Uh, the problem with expressing regret though, is that

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as other people point it out, there's a trade off.

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Uh, if I say I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to do it,

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it opens me up to legal liability.

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And so a lot

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of companies use what's called the equivocal apology.

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Uh, I'm really sorry.

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The problem occurred, but you never

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say I caused the problem.

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You always have something that

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is very ambivalent along the way.

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So that was the third, a fourth of,

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benoy strategies.

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Uh, his last strategy is, ification.

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So you've got five strategies that he has as part of

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how to handle a crisis.

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And the last major orientation I look at at,

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especially in this article, is focusing event.

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A focusing event is a sudden event

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that captures public attention.

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And that event sort of crystallizes lots

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of issues along the way.

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Uh, probably the best example

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of a focus event is something like Columbine.

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We had had school shootings before Columbine.

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Often they occurred in urban areas,

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drive-by shootings or in rural areas.

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What was so devastating about Columbine,

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it occurred in an upper middle class town,

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Littleton, Colorado.

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Uh, it occurred in an area where people moved to,

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to get away from the ills of urban society.

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And so it became an event that crystallized public opinion.

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There were five cover stories on Time Magazine,

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about school shootings, about, what happens.

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Uh, it, led to a lot of attention along the way.

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Berkland, who's the chief theorist of focusing event, says

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that a focusing event will lead to a legislative enactment.

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People will pass legislation

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to prevent this from happening again.

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My approach is that a focus event often leads

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to a rhetorical symbol.

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So Columbine did not have a legislative enactment.

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Uh, television people argue that,

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and computer people argued that, the First Amendment

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stopped the government from

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issuing a new regulations gun.

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People said the Second Amendment stopped

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people from doing this.

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And so there was never any major legislation.

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But Columbine has become a symbol.

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And anytime we've had a school shooting,

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and since Columbine in 1990, nine, we have had

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several school shootings along the way.

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And everybody brings up Columbine as the template

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for here's what happens.

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So a focusing events is a way of looking at how the public

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actually focuses on something.

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It's an agenda setting part of the media,

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how the agenda is set by the media in order for

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public opinion to crystallize on one topic.

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So there's three different approaches

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that I look at in this article, stage theory, strategy,

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theory and focusing event.

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And all three have it.

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My argument is that the best way to understand the crisis is

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to take elements from all three approaches

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to actually get a more comprehensive view

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of what a crisis is

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Like. Why is

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value jet lasting?

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It's 25 years since I wrote the article.

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What was special about value jet

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value jet was a discount airline.

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The FAA was put into a dual role.

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On the one hand, it wanted to promote this discount segment

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of the airline industry.

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Discount airlines were affordable.

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They offered easy access to people.

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The seaport Small, they have no frills,

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no extra food in that.

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But part of the FAA wanted to promote this as a way

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of people moving.

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On the other hand, the fa a's mandate is

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to provide for public safety.

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And so, you had conflicting goals we wanna both promote

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as well as measure public safety.

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So there was something special about the value jet case.

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You had a federal agency that was caught in

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with dual purposes and acted

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Badly Because they should have

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monitored value jet ahead of time.

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And indeed, they claimed

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that they had monitored 5,000 value jet

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flights ahead of time.

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So What happened?

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Well, there had been warning signs that value jet was

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a problematic airline value.

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Jet often bought planes from other companies

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and then reconditioned them.

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But these planes were predisposed

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to have accidents and value.

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Jet had a higher rate of accident than what was normal

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in the airline industry.

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And the FAA sort of let it slide.

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So in the prodromal where you could've actually intervened,

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the FAA just let it go, in the acute,

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it was a terrible tragedy.

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You could not find any remnants of the bodies at all.

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Uh, people combed the Flora Everglades, they were able

15:31.735 --> 15:34.535
to find, the black box eventually,

15:34.675 --> 15:36.455
but it was a difficult thing.

15:36.765 --> 15:40.495
What turns out is the Arrow values

15:40.565 --> 15:43.615
that Flight 5 92 was carrying some oxygen tanks.

15:43.795 --> 15:46.415
And those oxygen tanks exploded

15:46.755 --> 15:49.735
and the way that didn't leave any remnants

15:49.735 --> 15:50.775
of the plane at all.

15:50.955 --> 15:54.895
And so there was a question, do you allow these airplanes

15:54.955 --> 15:59.015
to actually carry these oxygen tanks in this kind

15:59.015 --> 16:01.575
of a manner, especially if it was an older, plane.

16:01.835 --> 16:04.415
And so the acute raised some questions.

16:04.675 --> 16:09.375
The chronic is people started investigating a value jet,

16:10.235 --> 16:13.735
and value jet had cut corners, had not done the kind

16:13.735 --> 16:14.935
of maintenance it needed.

16:15.635 --> 16:18.495
It was able to postpone maintenance in order

16:18.555 --> 16:20.135
to keep the prices down.

16:20.275 --> 16:21.295
And so,

16:21.485 --> 16:24.415
what was interesting about its pricing structure is

16:24.615 --> 16:27.095
that it achieved those economies,

16:27.235 --> 16:29.575
but only by neglecting the kinds of things

16:29.575 --> 16:30.655
that should have been done.

16:31.195 --> 16:34.255
And so there was a question about whether values Jett would

16:34.255 --> 16:35.295
be able to exist.

16:35.555 --> 16:39.335
And indeed, values Jet had to change its name.

16:39.835 --> 16:42.335
The public was so alarmed by this.

16:42.635 --> 16:45.575
Now, there were other discount airlines.

16:45.805 --> 16:48.855
Many of them went by the wayside.

16:49.275 --> 16:52.015
Uh, we had something called People's Express in the

16:52.295 --> 16:53.495
nineties that came out of Newark.

16:54.045 --> 16:57.295
Southwest Airline was the best of the discount,

16:57.515 --> 16:58.935
but,

16:59.105 --> 17:02.535
value Jet could not survive in its current way.

17:03.195 --> 17:08.015
You saw value jet fighting back using many of OID strategies

17:08.205 --> 17:11.015
that, it was a good airline,

17:11.085 --> 17:14.335
that it bolstered it record of how it served people

17:14.475 --> 17:17.135
and that, so it followed a pattern in that.

17:17.475 --> 17:19.495
But this became a focusing a bit.

17:19.795 --> 17:21.935
And the reason it did is

17:21.935 --> 17:26.295
that you had con contradictory goals by a federal agency

17:26.685 --> 17:29.695
that was designed to supervise this, company.

17:30.315 --> 17:33.855
And that just defaulted on what its responsibility is.

17:33.875 --> 17:37.815
And so value Jet becomes the poster child for

17:39.295 --> 17:42.305
this is bad government and bad industry.

17:42.815 --> 17:44.065
What I did in the work,

17:44.205 --> 17:46.865
and actually I was trying to find a good vehicle

17:47.285 --> 17:48.425
for looking at theory.

17:49.065 --> 17:51.485
Uh, if you're gonna work in a field like crisis

17:51.925 --> 17:54.405
communication, war stories aren't enough.

17:54.665 --> 17:58.965
Uh, I have a database with had,

17:58.975 --> 18:01.645
which has 2000 crisis events.

18:02.065 --> 18:03.685
We have crisis events all the time.

18:04.345 --> 18:07.565
Uh, the other day, the Francis Scott Keybridge

18:08.065 --> 18:12.325
and Baltimore collapse, how that collapsed,

18:12.905 --> 18:16.125
why the whole bridge collapsed in the way,

18:16.235 --> 18:18.805
what was happening, on the ship,

18:19.225 --> 18:20.885
why they didn't have some precautions.

18:20.955 --> 18:23.005
There's this theory in crisis communication

18:23.005 --> 18:24.805
that talks about high reliability,

18:25.275 --> 18:28.045
that even if an accident is about to occur,

18:28.045 --> 18:29.205
there are backup systems

18:29.745 --> 18:32.685
and there should have been backup systems for power on this,

18:32.785 --> 18:34.165
cargo ship.

18:34.165 --> 18:38.305
In that, I look upon

18:39.295 --> 18:44.265
this article as a way of trying to make theory relevant

18:44.265 --> 18:47.065
and looking for theoretical perspectives

18:47.605 --> 18:50.625
to make crisis communication a solid field.

18:51.085 --> 18:54.665
Beside the three, the theories that I identify,

18:55.035 --> 18:57.505
there are theories like high reliability theory,

18:57.565 --> 18:59.945
normal accident theory, chaos theory.

19:00.365 --> 19:03.025
And so we've tried to take events and do that.

19:03.525 --> 19:06.825
The importance of this in the long run is that,

19:07.175 --> 19:09.905
most insurance companies are not paying off

19:10.605 --> 19:14.855
if a company hasn't done some work ahead of time.

19:15.315 --> 19:17.175
Uh, evacuation behavior.

19:17.555 --> 19:20.615
How many companies have ever seen an evacuation behavior?

19:21.195 --> 19:25.215
Uh, how, how do you organize your employees? What do you do?

19:25.365 --> 19:28.415
What if you have an active shooter, on the premises?

19:28.635 --> 19:29.695
How do you handle that?

19:30.075 --> 19:33.695
And so I think you have to expect a crisis.

19:34.275 --> 19:36.615
The belief that no company will have a crisis,

19:36.915 --> 19:37.975
is foolish.

19:38.595 --> 19:41.975
Uh, it would be nice if we never have a crisis,

19:42.275 --> 19:44.455
but there's not a hundred percent guarantee of that.

19:45.275 --> 19:47.935
If you never get outta bed, you're crisis free.

19:48.235 --> 19:50.535
But once you get outta bed in the morning,

19:50.535 --> 19:52.335
you're gonna face a level of risk.

19:52.635 --> 19:53.695
Bad things do happen.

19:54.245 --> 19:56.655
Organizations have to prepare for a crisis,

19:57.115 --> 20:00.495
and I think insurance providers are saying,

20:00.875 --> 20:03.575
we are not gonna pay off if you have a bombing,

20:03.755 --> 20:06.775
if you have a, if you have a fire,

20:07.035 --> 20:10.255
unless we've seen that you've hired an emergency manager.

20:10.935 --> 20:13.295
I know at our school, we now have somebody who's a

20:13.295 --> 20:14.535
crisis communication manager.

20:15.175 --> 20:17.535
A lot of things we're falling between the cracks.

20:17.875 --> 20:22.775
We now have everybody's cell phone number is there.

20:22.875 --> 20:25.015
So if we have an active shooter on campus,

20:25.475 --> 20:28.295
if we have flooding on lower campus, we're able to do that.

20:28.635 --> 20:31.655
We have the digital technology to be able to reach people.

20:32.115 --> 20:36.435
And I hope that this theoretical piece

20:37.055 --> 20:38.835
can be used to build more theory

20:39.055 --> 20:42.195
and then to alert people that this is an important area.

20:42.615 --> 20:46.715
For a long time, we were the stepchild of public relations.

20:47.115 --> 20:50.165
Emergency management is an important area by itself,

20:50.505 --> 20:53.005
and every company should make preparation.

20:53.305 --> 20:57.365
People don't intuitively do this unless they practice, and

20:57.365 --> 20:59.125
unless you devote some resources

20:59.225 --> 21:03.605
to hiring an emergency manager, providing time so

21:03.605 --> 21:05.805
that employees will know what to do.

21:05.955 --> 21:08.045
Otherwise, people are scared

21:08.305 --> 21:11.565
and anxious during a crisis, which leads to more deaths

21:11.565 --> 21:12.525
and more destruction.

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