The CRASH of A380 Flight QF32 & Social Media

April 12, 2012 - PRLog -- “The
reports from Batam Island sparked a lot of activity on Twitter,
with people asking what had happened, seeking information
and also retweeting conversations. Several media outlets
also reported on the tweets and indicated that there were reports that
a Qantas jet had crashed after leaving Singapore. This included several
reports on wire services. This information and reporting happened very
quickly and it was difficult for Qantas to correct the record immediately,
due to the volume of misinformation on Twitter.”
Two-and-a-half hours later (by which time the aircraft was back on
the ground in Singapore) Reuters was still freshly reporting to the world
that “Qantas says crashed plane an Airbus A380 … Qantas told CNBC
television that a plane that crashed near Singapore was an Airbus A380.
No other details were immediately available.” By now, a combination of
wrong tweets combined with a misquoted, incomplete report of a CNBC TV
statement, made the crash seem authentic.
Says Mr Joyce, the big problem at that time was, “Qantas had no instant
way of getting the message out to the world in its own words.”
Despite the fact that “within minutes” Qantas officials had “provided
information to the media that no aircraft had crashed and that the A380
was making a return journey to Singapore”, the damage had already
been done. Because of the long tail of news (eg via news wires, which
are picked up and often repeated by online and hard copy conventional
media with very little change or cross-checking), the incorrect reports
were reverberating across time zones faster than the correcting news being asked about this incident.”
The same is still probably true of most
airlines. Not so Qantas. Not any more.
After this initial firefighting exercise,
Qantas then “fast-tracked the establishment
of a number of channels, including
@qantasmedia. This was set-up within 48
hours [of the A380 incident]. This account
is set up purely for the provision of factual
information for the media (and others) during
normal operations and also crisis situations.”
“We had this up and running very quickly
to ensure we could provide updates on the
grounding of the A380 fleet, as well as other
delays, incidents or news which would be of
interest to the public. We also used other
social media platforms during the next 19
days to provide updates to the public." - by Qantas CEO