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Bill statement format for Public Relations

welcome to a mackenzie institute long talk bill akerley grew up along the american border near one of the world's largest cold war air force bases and that's where he developed a passion for aviation a passion which he has had to put into practice as an organizer for ottawa's national capital air show for more than a decade he's been responsible for public and media relations he got his first big test when something went wrong seriously wrong people may forget that a wonderful family outing like an air show is also a very dangerous event i asked bill what he does to keep people safe well i think primarily in canada you have to take into consideration the ground rules uh that are set by transport canada by the airport operators in the case of the air show which i'm primarily involved with it's held at an international airport which operates throughout the air show so they have their own rules as well overall air shows in canada are enormously safe i can't recall and i don't believe there is on record a time when a spectator has either been seriously injured or certainly killed by say an accident or an occurrence during an air show obviously air shows much like automobile races much like power boat racing and all of those other manifestations are inherently accident prone because it they involved uh you know a highly mechanical uh extremely expensive uh very complex aircraft and and machines and so accidents do occur there are cases in other countries where spectators have been killed and i'm thinking of rammstein and injuries elsewhere this must give you pause this must be in the back of your mind it's always a very stressful experience to put on an air show it's stressful for the organizers because obviously they have to be concerned about the money coming in at the gate it's stressful for those of us who are involved in in in dealing with the media with the public with the you know the crises as they occur yes of course whenever an accident occurs here in canada or elsewhere and certainly the cases that you described are examples of where spectators have been not only hurt but but killed they are a cause for concern there is in north america an organization called the international council of air shows uh which groups about uh 250 or 300 north american air shows and and one of their main purpose is to make sure that air shows are safe that make sure that performers have guidelines rules to abide by and they work with transport canada and the equivalent in the united states to make sure that there are safety precautions i think overall air shows in north america are far safer than uh than air shows that are held in other parts of the world uh on a very simplistic level i assume the major thing is not having planes flying above where people are sitting exactly and that's and that's and that's exactly what the rules uh require and uh different types of airplanes have different envelopes within which they can perform uh obviously if you have a single engine cessna type aircraft it can appear to perform much closer to uh to the crowd zone than an aircraft that is traveling at uh six or seven or eight hundred miles an hour uh doing loops or whatever but yes um and and um people who regularly uh go to air shows in canada will notice for example that in a a flat circle if an aircraft is performing a flat circle it is never 360 degrees it's more likely 280 degrees or so because that part of the circle which would make the aircraft face directly towards the crowd is eliminated and that's one of the rules in canada that doesn't exist but when two jets hit each other when they're flying close formation and aerobatics the jet fuel and the burning plane parts can travel yes um is that taken into account well yes it is uh and and i referred earlier to uh depending on the type of of aircraft uh how close it can fly within that crowd zone envelope if you want and all of all of those elements would be taken into consideration in in in planning that type of show but of course accidents do happen and um and you have to plan for them you have to plan on on how you're going to uh to deal with it uh you know on the part of say the immediate response whether it's fire security uh uh ambulances and so on and you have to deal with the consequences of having an accident uh in media planning and how you respond to the crisis and how you deal obviously you may very well have you know 50 or 60 000 people who are literally traumatized as the accident occurs before their very eyes so you have to deal with that practically on an immediate basis because they are there and they're not only there because you know they happen to be there they're there as your clients they've actually paid to come and see this thing so there's a certain sense of responsibility that you have towards them and in addition to that then of course you have to be able to deal with the longer consequences and whether that's uh you know the the the obvious media follow-up and any kind of investigation or investigative measures that are that are that follow and they always do it can be anything from our coroner's inquest obviously in canada an investigation by the transportation safety board any other agencies that may be involved now you say those sixty thousand people may have been traumatized but on another level without being too unkind to them they went there for those sorts of thrills and some people would say they went there in a way in the hopes of seeing a crash i think it's human nature this this i mean you're talking about bloodlust and i don't disagree with the point you make it i think it's human nature to be attracted to these types of events what you need at that point is an an experienced announcer the person who is doing the description of the air show needs to be able to pull himself or herself back and and calm the people the spectators down while at the same time reminding them that they must stay where they are as opposed to trying to jump on the field to to to impede the work of the rescue workers all of those things worked for us what didn't did not work for us was um was that we hadn't planned on an accident happening in the second day of our first year at a new airport um you didn't know the route to get from point a to point b little things like that yes i think i think you're absolutely right and and and luckily um i found in that instance as opposed to other instances where i've had to deal with the media uh that they were quite sympathetic to our dilemma and and very respectful of of our need to kind of also stand step back and deal with the incident and while at the same time trying to cope with with the stresses of the people on site uh the stress of having to to deal with the media obviously it was a fatal accident and so and the family of of the the pilot was were also on site and we had to deal with that as well i found the media quite sympathetic um and and so they gave us time to you know to to step back to to deal with the situation and then to provide the information which we thought was adequate uh to them in other traumatic events like this the challenger explosion twa 800 airlines and nasa and others have been chastised and thoroughly criticized for being slow in confirming the patently obvious the plane has blown up everyone is obviously virtually instantly dead yet there's a human being at the other end of that criticism who is traumatized himself speak to the issue of having to talk to people very quickly shortly after a traumatic event under that kind of criticism yeah you have to be in the case of uh the industry with which i'm involved air shows in particular the media is generally very good to you let's face it air shows are great television images air shows are great newspaper photos they're wonderful colorful activities which the media really sucks up when you have an incident or an occurrence you you have to understand that you there's almost a duty to be good to the media because they have been so good to you and they can be bad to you and they can be bad and they can be demanding and downright ferocious if if you're not feeding them regularly and and one incident i recall i don't even know where the media came from but within 10 minutes we were surrounded by microphones television cameras photographers and what have you how did that feel well uh frightening initially and then you take a deep breath and you say i have to be in control here these people have a right to the information they expect that they will be provided with the information but i must maintain control uh on the scene because i represent this airshow and i have to respect the fact that you know uh people are injured that they are as we speak being taken to the hospital and that generally their families don't know you're in news and news management and on the other end of those microphones for 27 years and you were frightened i was frightened i was frightened uh it was for me a scene out of um some of the scrums that i see uh you know uh involving say the president of of the united states or the prime minister of canada and it was um uh it was it was frightening but then i mean you take a deep breath and you say ladies and gentlemen this is the information we have this is what we can give you there will be no questions and answers at this time we will however hold a news conference as soon as we can in 60 minutes 45 minutes whatever the case may be and we will try to answer all of your questions there this is what we know thank you very much now if i'm a radio reporter 60 minutes is two or three newscasts from now if i'm a wire service reporter that's an eternity i suppose if you're if you're a wire service reporter or a radio reporter and and and you're really or you're really good at what you do you can try to get the information from other sources what i'm telling you is that i am the official spokesperson of a given organization and my role is to control the flow of information to make sure it's accurate that it's professional that it doesn't impede whatever investigation or whatever uh emergency measures may be underway and that it respects the rights of uh the families how soon he was able to confirm that the pilot was dead his name and other details uh in the case of that particular incident within 60 minutes not much point in delaying that no because again it was yes the point is it was obvious and there was no point in delaying it meanwhile over in a vip area yes you have the family of that pilot what do you do with that well what we did in this particular case uh the chairman of our air show uh went in at the you know within a minute or two of the of the occurrence uh went immediately to locate in this case it was the wife of the pilot uh to locate her to to to be with her through the entire ordeal we she was brought to a room that was that was quiet and peaceful where she could if she wanted to speak to other members of her family by phone who were in the united states and in her case as well we quickly arranged for a charter aircraft uh to fly her home and so she was not exposed to the media here and chose uh or accepted our invitation to fly home within a matter of within a couple of hours she was on her way home in one or two sentences you've mentioned some very complex logistics involving security procurement of money assets spending of money how were you able to do all those things so quickly well oftentimes you don't think of those uh of those logistics as as they're happening for you have to remember if you're talking of an air show obviously that you have people there who who who have the ability to to call upon say an aircraft as a charter uh who have you know who are friends also the circumstances are such that that people are automatically in a sympathetic mood so if you approach say transport canada and say would you have an aircraft available to take this this poor woman uh home because her husband has just passed away and generally it's you know it's um the request is is regarded with a sympathetic ear and and you deal with the with the logistics the costs the fuel whatever it may be at a later date in terms of of of the security aspect of it the security providing security to the grieving family or whatever the case may be i mean you you indicated there are always in these types of event vip present and so there is security available because they're there for for other purposes and again i mean they look upon this this may be a truly canadian response you know but they look on these matters very sympathetically and and are there generally want to be helpful i'm thinking out loud when i say it may be a canadian principle of isomorphic learning says that we can learn from other people's disasters even if it was a different company a different culture a different time what was the difference between the challenger and the titanic very similar events really why were there 37 years between the iroquois theater fire in chicago and the coconut grove nightclub fire in boston very similar events but we didn't learn if you were going to manage an air show you wouldn't think to figure out what to do if people get hit by lightning that's exactly what you had to find out about one yeah a few years ago um on the airshow site as um shortly after the gates opened there was a an extremely violent storm as as human beings are do people seek shelter in storms in this case under the wings of an aircraft which at the height of the storm was struck by lightning the only worst place would be under a lightning rod one assumes yes and and an aircraft in in a violent storm is a pretty good lightning rod were they badly injured um there were four people who were injured um one in fact uh went into cardiac arrest on the scene was luckily air shows are planned with security and safety as a very first element so you have on the site an increased presence of ambulance personnel of doctors of nurses they are there to deal with circumstances in this case uh the one person who went into cardiac arrest was revived on the site by a nurse who happened to be nearby as an airshow volunteer was transported or in the process of being transported to the nearest hospital went into cardiac arrest again was revived by the paramedics and was in a coma for several days and now is just walking around fine with with some burn scars uh from a chain uh which was worn around the neck at the time of of the uh of the strike um the other three people were a little bit further away from the aircraft and and they certainly were knocked to the ground were taken to the hospital were released a day or two later in that incident i found um the media to be far more aggressive in its desire for information even though you didn't cause the lightning even though we didn't cause the lightning i think that the media as you know has various methods of obtaining information in this case they were monitoring police ambulance communications when a person is in cardiac arrest that information is communicated to the ambulances that are speeding to the scene the assumption certainly by some of the media was that the person had died and as the media descended on us uh i mean wanted us to confirm that the person was no longer alive you and he did not want to do that precisely a whether the person was dead or alive we would not have confirmed it at that point in time but he was in fact still alive and the media having heard the ambulance calls and the police calls simply would not believe them when we told them uh you know yes in critical condition true that if you have a good plan to deal with heat prostration which you could well expect at a summer air show lightning which you might not an elderly person having a heart attack which you might well expect then you can probably deal with a crash or a terrorist incident or a hostage taking or all kinds of things that might require medical attention security evacuation and so on is that right yes indeed and and and interestingly enough you you need to rehearse those things you need to rehearse circumstances because often i mean not oftentimes but occasionally you can get uh caught you can let yourself be caught in a situation which which has the potential to spin out of courage let me give you an example um one or two occasions in recent years there have been demonstrations planned against the air show some groups believe that air shows promote war you use too much fuel bad for the environment like car racing does they have protesters as well right um when you when you get woken up at 5 30 in the morning by a radio reporter who says what a wonderful day for an air show we would like to talk to you on air about it you assume that the discussion will deal with the fact that it's a wonderful day for an air show that thousands of people will appear at the gates that everybody will go home happy and once you go on air and the reporter says there's a demonstration plan because some people say you guys promote war what do you think if you haven't prepared and it's 5 30 in the morning and you're still half asleep you can get yourself caught truly seriously luckily you know one can practice appropriate responses to those types of questions and amazingly enough even when you're half asleep they come to you and you can deal with it with the unexpected and it's very easy to plan there are all types of resources out there whether in the case of a lightning strike it's from environment canada and they do have you know information available as to how how how you you deal with it how you try to avoid it how you you know uh whether it's information that you can get from from from other um air shows in this case that have had to deal with similar situation and if you plan and if you discuss with your key people how you're going to deal with any situation then you can you you can deal with it it may be traumatic it may be difficult to deal with it may be enormously stressful uh but you did it builds within you a certain level of confidence that you know that you can deal with that you will remain in control that you will be fair accurate in the information that you pass along and that you'll be respected respectful of those who may be victims or who may be affected by whatever the situation is air show enthusiast and media relations director bill akerley any views expressed here are not necessarily those of the mackenzie institute its speakers sponsors or supporters but the institute is dedicated to fostering public discussion debate and education about security matters google the mckenzie institute to join the discussion the mckenzie institute is grateful to its sponsors and supporters some of our short pods and long talks are a result of the support of heathbridge capital management limited the national post and dundern publishing