The Narrative of Accident Investigations
What can we learn from the narratives of accident investigations? And more importantly, what can we learn about our assumptions, worldviews and beliefs in the way we narrate accidents? Are we really learning from our accident narratives? In this article, I will use the example of the Miracle of the Hudson River to illustrate how we construct our narratives, and to establish what I have learned from this narrative.
The Miracle of the Hudson
On 15 January 2009 US Airways flight 1549 took off from New York City’s La Guardia Airport for Charlotte, North Carolina. While still in the climb-out from take-off, the aircraft struck a flock of Canada geese and lost engine power. The pilot, declaring an emergency, was given immediate clearance to land both back at La Guardia and at the nearest alternate airport, Teterboro in New Jersey. But the captain and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, calculated that the plane would not make it to either airport, and decided to ditch the aircraft in the Hudson River, alongside Manhattan Island. As it turned out, this was a good decision; all 155 people on board, passengers and crew, survived the accident. This was an American airliner, flown by two American pilots in American airspace.
More than six years after the accident, a newspaper printed a picture of Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger (Cook R., 2016). Sitting bolt upright, Sully had represented the pride of an entire nation when he performed the ‘most successful ditch in aviation history’ (Olshan, 2009) and turned catastrophe into success. ‘The Miracle of the Hudson River’, as the accident was famously termed, made Sully a public hero.
In every accident there are elements of randomness and an unforeseen congruence of events that could not have been anticipated. Some of the events captured in the accident report would lie outside the imagination and influence of even a well-trained pilot.
- A very experienced co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, who had recently completed type-rated training two weeks prior to the accident, was sitting alongside Sully;
- An extremely cold day with temperature recorded at -15 degrees centigrade (5 Fahrenheit), meaning minimum marine traffic on an otherwise busy touristic river;
- An air traffic controller who performed remarkably well in the situation, offering contingency plans and even backing those contingencies;
- An emergency team that was readily available to conduct a rescue operation within minutes of the plane landing on the water;
- An airplane that was ‘1 in 20 of Airbus A320s equipped as an EOW airplane in the US Airways fleet of 75 A320s’, (NTSB, 2009), and which therefore carried lifesaving equipment such as passenger life vests, slide/rafts, and survival kit. Non-EOW planes are not required to carry those items.
Beneath this random congruence sits something far more sacred, which gives amplified attention to the captain and leads to the hero myth. Despite the unprecedented nature of his decision to land the plane on the water, there were no deaths and few injuries in this accident. All 155 passengers and crew members survived the accident – or should we say Sully saved the day? But would Sully still be the hero if a few people had died or had been seriously injured?
The hero myth
What can we learn about ourselves from this accident narrative? Let us begin with the choice of language. In this accident, there is an unforeseen situation, an emergency, an unprecedented situation to land the plane on water in the face of a crisis, a miracle, and ‘an old-fashioned hero’ who saved 155 lives.
This is the hero myth (also called the monomyth). The concept is based on the work of Joseph Campbell: the protagonist, an ordinary person, is confronted by a challenge, which they accept; there are failures and setbacks on the journey until they find support (a coach, mentor or an inner force), turn failure into success, come home transformed, and become a force for change in society. (The final aspect of societal change is, however, often forgotten in individualist societies, because the hero takes all the credit for the success, and the journey often ends there.)
The hero myth, a recognised pattern in storytelling in the accident narrative, is intended to alleviate human emotions to the extent that there is no scope for reasoning, thinking or arguing. The mythical appeal in the narrative leaves little room for doubt. What is there to question in a pilot’s decision that saved so many people from dying? It’s interesting that some call this narrative a miracle and then search for answers to this miracle in human actions. The way to resolve this dilemma is in fact to accept that this is not an ordinary act but the making of a superhero. We see in this accident the same patterns of Greek mythology, with superheroes fighting against the odds in pursuit of justice and social order.
But can professionals ever be considered superheroes? Those working in emergency response teams and lifesaving, and in the teaching, helping and caring professions, would have difficulty buying into this ‘superhero’ narrative, because it does not align with the ethos of their profession (Egan, 2017).
When an act of caring and helping is made to appear extraordinary or supernatural, it is symbolic of an action that stands outside the reach of the average professional. The profession is no longer about finding communion, humility and equality in a relationship, but of giving support to the unequal other. It is a narrative of the oppressor and the oppressed, when the hero’s job is to save the oppressed (Freire, 1973). In the absence of the hero, the oppressed is doomed.
My contention is not so much with the hero myth as with the imbalance in this narrative. If the hero myth offers participation and imitation, it is a narrative that inspires change in society. But if all that we experience is amusement, entertainment and passive admiration for a Hollywood-style celebrity, the accident narrative has failed to serve its purpose (Postman, 2010; Armstrong, 2006).
The Myth of the American Superhero by Jewett and Lawrence. The symbol of a superhero is the American hope for salvation and redemption in extraordinarily powerful people (sometimes by creating unreal characters) who can rise beyond our social and political institutions.[1]
Success is all that matters
The image of the aircraft captain sitting proudly upright won him the title of ‘old-fashioned global hero’. In that article, the captain made an honest confession about the outcome of his decision. This was an outcome which, Sully felt, could easily have gone worse than it did. The many environmental and social ingredients that came to work together in those ninety seconds were nothing short of a ‘miracle’: a competent co-pilot, the presence of EWS landing gear, the availability of lifejackets under the seats, the exceptional weather and the traffic conditions in the river on the day of the accident, and the quality of rescue and coordination services – all these factors are listed in the official report. But in a country seduced by the Hollywood culture, those details hardly mattered. What mattered was success in the face of the unexpected. The hero myth.
Consider also the choice of language in the formal investigation report, in the making of a hero myth:
The professionalism of the flight crew members and their excellent Crew Resource Management during the accident sequence contributed to their ability to maintain control over the plane, configure it to the extent possible to control under the circumstance and fly an approach that increase the survivability of the impact [my italics]. (NTSB, 2009)
What could possibly explain an official government document making use of the normative expression ‘professionalism’? What do we make of the term ‘excellent’? Such is the power of this poetic language that it allows our own imagination to give meaning to these events. In the event that some people had not survived the accident, would the report still celebrate the heroism of the crew with the same vigour? What does this language tell us about the hidden unconscious in the narrative? The human need for superheroes is not limited to the calamities of pre-modern times or the superstitions of people in the developing world. Every time we are confronted by misfortune, what persist deep within us are miracles, magical whims and superpowers, in even the most advanced societies. Deep down, we are not as scientific and objective as we think we are.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_American_Superhero
Even if we were to believe in the superpowers of the captains and pilots, we might not always be so fortunate as to have superheroes around us in every situation. An organisation founded on the principles of mindfulness, critical thinking, respect and trust between ordinary people to carry out their duties is better equipped to manage the unexpected than an organisation that puts its trust in superheroes and miracles.
Why do we need competing narratives
When we understand the hidden myths in our narratives, we realise that no single narrative has the potency to explain what is going on here. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that Captain Sullenberger did not deserve the credit for his presence of mind in averting the disaster. But to rely single-handedly on a narrative that slices and dices data and unambiguously connects selective events to produce a myth that is emotionally arousing and uncritically imbibed by the masses does not create opportunities for learning and reflection.
People involved in accidents are not superheroes and villains. These are ordinary people, like most of us, who unexpectedly find themselves in out-of-the-ordinary conditions and undesirable situations. Is it necessary, for learning, to create narratives of superheroes? Is it not easier to connect and learn with ordinary people by removing the boundaries that separate us from them?
References
Armstrong, K. (2006). A short history of myth. Edinburgh: Canongate.
Campbell, J. (1995). Myths to Live By: The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell. Souvenir Press Ltd.
Cook, R. (2016, November 27). Chesley Sullenberger: an old-fashioned kind of hero. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/27/chesley sullenberger-sully-film-clint-eastwood-tom-hanks-miracle-hudson-river
Egan, G. (2017). The Skilled Helper. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York : Seabury Press.
NTSB. (2009). Loss of Thrust in Both Engines After Encountering a Flock of Birds and Subsequent Ditching on the Hudson River US Airways Flight 1549 Airbus A320‐214, N106US. Accident Report, National Transportation Safety Board, Washington.
Olshan, J. (2009, January 17). Quiet Air Hero Is Captain America. Retrieved from New York Post: https://nypost.com/2009/01/17/quiet-air-hero-is-captain-america/
Postman, N. (2010).Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin.
