Somebody knew

Gene Mage

It is January 13, 1982, and my friends and I are playing touch football on a snow-covered lawn. My feet are cold. My hands are freezing. My friends are shivering. We make the wise choice to head inside for a cup of steaming hot chocolate just before four in the afternoon.

About thirty minutes from where we stand, the city of Washington DC has shut down for the day in one of the worst snowstorms in decades. At Washington’s National Airport, seventy-nine passengers and five crewmembers wait with great excitement to make their escape from the snowy north to the sunny warmth of Fort Lauderdale.

Captain Larry Wheaton and First Officer Roger Pettit piloted Air Florida Flight 90 that morning. After de-icing procedures, they taxied their Boeing 737 onto Washington National Airport’s one open runway and began their takeoff roll. Almost immediately, Pettit noticed something wrong. Gauges designed to monitor the performance of the engine gave erratic readings. The plane was taking too long to get airborne.

Pettit knew something was wrong. If you read the cockpit voice recorder transcript, you realize that Pettit was trying, in vain, to communicate his concerns to the captain. But his warnings just did not get through.

Just after liftoff, the plane lost lift and collided with the 14^th Street Bridge, plunging through the ice into the Potomac River. My friends and I watched in stunned silence as we took in that horrible scene on the TV screen. All of Washington was shocked by those events. As a community, we shared the grief over such needless loss of life. But our grief was multiplied when we learned that the accident could most certainly have been avoided.

With the passage of time, we who lived in Washington began to gain some perspective on the events of that day. We took solace in the many acts of heroism displayed in those icy waters.

We heard about an ordinary banker named Arland Williams who, refusing to be rescued, helped five others into the harness that would lift them to the rescue helicopter hovering above. After saving others, he slipped beneath those icy waters. It was eighteen months before we even knew the name of that anonymous good man.

We heard about Lenny Skutnik who, inspired by the heroism of Williams, calmly took off his coat, and dived into the water to rescue a drowning woman.

We also began to hear about the lessons learned from that tragic day, lessons that would one day save lives in the future. For example, Washington DC municipal authorities discovered their radios were not interoperable between police, fire, and rescue services. They upgraded their communications systems. Twenty years later, their response to the September 11 crash at the Pentagon was more effective.

But of all the things we learned, probably the most important was that the real root cause of the accident was not mechanical breakdown, the weather, or even the skill of the pilots. While all those factors certainly contributed to the crash, the most important factor was the lack of communication and teamwork in the cockpit. The real root cause was a breakdown in leadership.

Somebody knew about the problem. The pilots could have returned to the gate for further de-icing. They could have aborted the takeoff roll. Somebody knew, but merely knowing was not enough. Somebody needed to speak in a way that enlisted others in taking action. Somebody needed to listen in a way that embraced the perspectives of others.

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, or perhaps some day in the future you will see something, and know something, that concerns you about a safety issue. What will you do? Will you exercise the courage to speak up? Will you listen when others bring you issues? Or will you be a silent spectator to another sad story that begins with these words, “Somebody knew.”

For more ideas on becoming “Free to Lead” from Leadership Development Author and Speaker Gene C. Mage, visit www.makingitwork.com.