British Airways flight catches fire in Las Vegas, and on social media

British Airways fight 2276 was engulfed in flames just as it was about to take off from Las Vegas to London Gatwick. The incident was captured vividly by passengers in the terminal, those on-board the flight and journalists. As with every airline incident, we learn new realities faced by airlines in the age of the connected traveler.  The good news in this case was that the incident was very professionally handled by the airline and the airport, and all passengers were safe.

Here were some key highlights of how the incident played out on social media:

  1. Live images and video of the fire posted up on Twitter and YouTube even before the emergency slides had deployed
  2. ATC recordings between the pilot and tower posted online soon after
  3. First time we have witnessed videos being posted on Periscope
  4. Passengers evacuating with their carry on bags, yet again!
  5. Las Vegas McCarran Airport does a fantastic job of keeping the public and the media informed
  6. A ramp agent posted first person accounts on Reddit!
  7. British Airways conspicuous by absence – no comments on their Facebook or Twitter feeds about the incident even four hours after it had blown up on social media.

In the following section, we give blow by blow details of the incident and how it was revealed online.

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Here’s how the British Airways Las Vegas fire played out online

 

While British Airways crew did well in evacuating the passengers, the airline’s lack of acknowledgement online left much to be desired. Is your airline ready for dealing with the connected traveller? Get in touch today, to discuss how SimpliFlying may be of help. Meanwhile, we re-iterate from our previous best practices on airline crisis communications:

Five Rules of Effective Crisis Communications:

  1. Acknowledge as quickly as you can that you know something has gone wrong.
  2. Establish official channels / pages where people can regularly seek updated information.
  3. Quickly get hold of accurate information and share it transparently, without corporate speak or legalese.
  4. Keep an eye out for rumours and quash them sooner than later.
  5. Follow-up is critical. A single, quick statement within two minutes is useless unless you follow-up regularly with updates, displaying your commitment to the cause.

You can further understand the importance of communicating the differences between Accidents and Incidents; or sign up for our Crisis Communications Report. Please do share your thoughts in the comments below, or tweet us @simpliflying

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