QF32: How The Crew Kept Passengers Calm

November 4, 2010, just minutes after welcoming 440 passengers on board flight QF32, an explosion rocks the Airbus A380, as five pilots, including myself, work through the numerous issues crippling the plane. The dedicated cabin services team are working hard to keep people calm and informed. They would be vital in communicating what was happening and get the passengers safely through this black swan event. I'm Richard the Crepany and this is Fly. In this episode, that was just terrific, so I never thought one wrong move and this whole thing blows up. cabin services manager aboard QF32, Michael von Wreath, details his experience looking after and reassuring the passengers that day and reveals that some rules simply had to be broken. Very privileged and honored to be sitting down with Michael von Wreath, who's a great friend and he was the cabin service manager on board QF32. There was no luck in QF32. You had prepared every day of your whole life for this flight and that's the way it unfolded so it's going to be a pleasure to delve into that. First of all, Michael, just explain yourself, who are you, what's your background? Well, I'm actually by birth German, run from Germany, so I worked for Lufthansa actually in Germany amongst other things and then I migrated from Germany to Australia, joined Quantas, worked for Quantas for 42 years nearly, was a customer service manager in the end and yes, was confronted with the Quantas 32 occurrence on that date in Singapore. And how many hours have you been in aviation now? I reckon it's about 49 years. Yeah, that's a long, it's in hours I couldn't measure it would be thousands. So in 2010, you're on an A380 and what position have you got? I was the operating customer service manager, CSM, so that was my position then with 24 crew and it was a London flight and we've done the Sydney Singapore London already, came back from London to Singapore, had a few days in Singapore and then on the day we were ready to fly to Sydney, yeah, then that was me and my crew were then confronted with the unfolding occurrence in Singapore. Right, so you're on an A380 which I just love to massive aircraft, how many decks are there? Two, there's a main deck and then there's the upper deck and on the main deck the Quantas configuration is first class in the nose in the front and then you have economy all the way through and on the upper deck you've got business class and then in the rear end there's a small premium economy class. Now so you've got 24 crew and watched their age group range and experience range? I was lucky I think when every time I look back on that I think I was lucky, so the youngest one was 19 and the oldest was me but then the second oldest was close to me around 55, 57 something like that but every age in and between so that was actually luck, that was good, having this age mix in that variance because everyone was contributing in a different way and I put that down as I always say wisdom of experience as you get older hopefully you become wiser and you can utilize that and people knowing or not knowing are utilizing this and that's a great advantage because the pool is much bigger of knowledge and where you can draw information or advice from you know and they were helping each other that turned out very well as well particularly on the emotional side with the younger ones, the older ones were of great value. So you were you were set up with the crew that was certainly proficient but hadn't seen an emergency before and what they need is one of the elements of resilience which is leadership which is you. Yes that is true but you find that you find this skill only out when you are when you're challenged because I never knew that I had these skills so because yes you have to be challenged but because I think I was so long within the field of safety, aviation safety, cabin crew safety and all of this stuff that I had some some basic knowledge experience wisdom whatever that was there from which I could build up what I didn't know is that I had the skills to operate so fast and concise and clearly and make the decision and it stood so I was never doubting with every decision I made so that surprised me. So can I put you to the test? Okay four minutes after takeoff on the 4th November 2010 QF32 takes off and you don't know where it's 7,000 feet and then something happens what happens? The first big thought came as a surprise and because the aircraft when the feeling was the aircraft was going back backwards a bit which it didn't but because of that feeling I had I thought some containers were not fixed they just hit the in the cargo hull cabins the passengers in the cargo hull they hit the rear bulk wall but then I looked out of the window and then came the second explosion yeah well so what now and then I thought the yellow book think about the yellow book the yellow book is our emerges procedures manual which lays very extensively out our rules and regulations that apply to us while we are working in a cabin environment or in on a aircraft so everything is written in there and hopefully you get your answers there how to respond in an emergency now the thing with this emergency procedures manual it's great that it exists it is hammered into you over your entire life within the aviation industry it forms your solid basis of well of essential knowledge how to act react and decide in an emergency but it provides not for every single situation that can occur and we all know now that the situation we had there was nowhere experienced ever was no written down there is no procedures for it there was nothing but what happened in the cabin what was it like in the cabin was a panic and now how did the cameras react in the passengers there was because see the aircraft banged a bit too and then just leveled out and then when I looked out that came out the fuel and hydraulics because the hydraulic is the fuel coming out of the wing yes because the hydraulics are yellow so I knew straight away that was the hydraulics but the passengers overall they were quiet actually I think they were more shocked or surprised about what happened than anything else but then they started talking but then I made very quick the PA to sit down keep the seatbelt fastened and then I also explained because I mean they've seen what happened there because the wing opened up the fuel is coming out and there was a puff of flames I knew the flight take is very busy so I can't bother them and so I met the PA and then I told them to sit down and fasten the seat belts and when the pilots will be doing everything to get the aircraft safely back to the ground and so will we and then it was silence that silence and then I thought now we can't go on like these so this thing was humming away and flying you were doing your thing I was very well aware you would be flat-chat up there so I got out of the seat that was the first standard operating procedure I broke actually I got out of the seat because I heard when the engine exploded that it you know I told you it was like hundreds of marbles rolling over corrugated iron you know that was the debris from the engines that it diffused a lot there's about 400 pieces of shrapnel that hit the aircraft there you go 200 in the cabin area hitting the fuselage 43 no one was hit if part of the engine the turbine disc had to come through the wall nothing would have stopped it yeah you see that because I didn't know what it was I thought I have to get out I have to know any passengers say angel or any penetration into the aircraft and I wanted to know what the damage to the cabin was so then I got up and I walked did a quick walk around through the entire aircraft told the crew to keep their seats still until they get then further instructions keep out looking out of the window any changes let me know immediately so that thank God there was nothing in the cabin so it was all outside obviously so I went back to my seat and then I was sitting down and then we were waiting and then I think David was the first one the captain he made a PA and that was very calming that was actually very soothing and calming it was good can I can I just stop you and take you back a bit because once they just said it was quiet but in the cabin they were there were lights were going on and off all the engines on that was when you said it was quiet there were a lot of distractions oh yes in regards to the aircraft yes because there went that many announcement of announcement of enlightenment on and off and the cabin light went on and off and the the the ife system the entertainment system was running I couldn't shut it down because I wanted to shut it down because I thought well we don't need to see what's happening out there we've got already enough problems but we couldn't switch it off and then the other thing is while all these things are were and all these alarm messages came up and in one instant there was a moment where the evacuation alarm on one door came up and it was also here that here comes the wisdom of experience on on one door was a young flight attendant and on the opposite door was a very experienced flight attendant and when this evacuation alarm on the door came a mind you were flying so yeah it doesn't really make sense no that's no sense that's right that flight attendant was startled and what you know what to do and looked at her and all she did she just nodded with her head and said no and that calmed her down straight away and then she kept on operating in the mode we are in all right now you said the startle effect which is the fear response of flight flight freeze and many things can cause it in passengers so the aircraft was shaking a little bit as well so they've got the the sounds of the alarms the sites of the lighting flicking on and off and maybe they're on the left hand sides and see out the window and parts of the wing through and past there could have easily been panic if that person who stood up started screaming panic spreads like a virus he could of course the whole cabin to collapse in this state of panic that's right this is this this is this is a key moment from for me they're definitely a key moment in the entire development further development of the situation in in regards to the passenger cabin if I wouldn't have told that passenger to return to his seat and fasten his seat belt and that we are in control and we and we do everything to get you safely back I think we would have had a lot of distractions and it would have been much harder to get the cabin under control now to put everyone else just into a little bit more of the environment that Michael was facing you tried to call the cockpit because so many things were going wrong and what happened when you called the cockpit I've attempted several times to ring the flight taking couldn't get through so I was going to destroy to that door no one answered no into the galley and stick to took so anyway and then I think you were the first one I got on the phone and then you started talking and you met another key comment that took tons of of worries of my shoulders you said the door is open you ring whenever you want to ring a knee to ring and we are here we're communicating so all channels are open that that was amazing because that freed a lot of default reserves in my brain that released it immediately because I knew so if I am now stuck I can ring you up and what it also does to you is you feel empowered but not empowered in a way oh I got power and now it's a very solid assurance you are safe because you can ask for help if you really think you start swimming and so it made me actually stronger and more independent but it took it actually was quite a long time before you did talk to the cockpit and because the the intercom had actually broken and we sent Mark back to talk to you Mark was a second officer I guess my point is that that you were under great stress you decided to experience that your manual only goes so far that's why you did what many cabin crew would complain about later or or not agree that you should not break the rules you broke the rules as you saw fit the rules are only designed for normal situations or maybe a simple emergency not when things compound so I need to put everyone into the environment we've got 440 passengers about 29 crew 469 people on an aircraft two explosions some people thought we dived when in fact they dived the aircraft to allow to chew all we did was level you know people's perceptions were their senses were heightened and they being activated and people's fear grows when they don't know what's happening or why they think the aircraft's going to collapse and there's no one in control and there's no one to have the help that that is I think that's another standard procedure I broke I started actually I don't even know it must have been after after David spoke that was when I started to talk and explain because the thing is you have you have non aviation people in the cabin their passengers their normal people there they don't there wouldn't know anything a lot of them wouldn't know anything about aviation and about I mean pushback and flaps slats and engine rotation and whatever so what I did there straight away every time there was a PA from the flight deck I virtually repeated it but I picked it apart in layman's words and they explained to them what it is for example one of them said why can't we land but why do we have to do these turns I said we are too heavy because we've put so many so much fuel on if we would land now the undercarriage wouldn't hold it so the undercarriage would break and then we would be sliding over the runway and then we explode and it went in and then you could see them okay so you're translating pilot jargon yes into language everyone can understand which means you're giving answers you're a ported contact you're starting to cancel out all the reasons why people are being afraid one of the passengers um carry Jones who's sitting down the back yeah she watched you take the captain crew into the galley into each galley correct and she said when the captain crew came out they were ashen faced but determined and that she thought you'd heard you say you've trained for this now it's time to put it into practice right now again for the sake of discussion of resilience I'm in the cockpit in the pilots of really busy managing the all the failures and trying to mitigate them a work at how we're going to land um and and I'm the command piloting command of the aircraft I'm I'm responsible for the passengers the cabin crew the freight the aircraft but we can't do it all we have to delegate a critical part of leadership is delegation the leader in a in a crisis should actually be able to sit back with a cup of tea and just give instructions well I couldn't do that we were busy in the flight deck but we trusted you I knew what role you had I knew what duties you had you're in charge of the cabin you're the perfect leader for that situation and even though we couldn't even really monitor it we fully trusted you to look up to the passengers and crater you did an amazing job Michael but another you just mentioned a delegation another important thing is when this whole thing unfolded um so I was in full action but then I reached a point where I thought this my my brain capacity is full now it's like you you compare that with a microchip so let's say it's for gigabyte it's full I can't process process it anymore and there comes the supervisor down the chair the stairs so he is another chip so I said to him you know what you are you are responsible for the upper deck and then I do the the run around on the bottom on the main deck then we swap and I run around on the top and you and every time we cross we'll exchange information anything that needs to be done and then I'll talk to the flight deck and the flight deck talks to me I talk to you and the crew you know and once I did that that wasn't a relief as well because I had more capacity again to think and to do things so delegation is is very very important I think and a great support it's a great support you're walking around the cabin and then you notice in terms of communication a problem yes that was in D zone that was full of Germans because the flight attend can forward you so you have to go come to the back they're getting all a bit cranky there I said who who are they they're old no no there's a whole group of Germans in D zone they don't know what's going on they want to know what's going on so I went down there and as soon as they saw me what's going on we don't understand everybody talks and la la la la I said you guys are from Germany okay so I explained it all in German I was amazing spoke German yes spoke German explained it all in German to them and was amazing how the cabin all of a sudden relax oh yeah now we know so we're going back yes it takes a while but we're going back so the pilots are doing everything now to get the aircraft in this into a situation where we can go back we can we definitely go back okay you make the rest in German two years and we'll do it so from then on I did English in German which was very helpful and then there was a few just a few Spanish and French so I speak a bit of Spanish and French as well so we did that I cannot again reiterate how proud I am of you and your cabin crew working together with all these nationalities you just went so far beyond what anyone could be expected to do you broke the rules and you did an absolutely perfect job I think that is a skill but I've done issue with all my years of experience I've done trauma stuff and you know and all these these training courses how to deal with people under stress and whatever but it's also I think you know there is an emotional intelligence and there's a rational intelligence both are important and then some are more on the emotional side emotional intelligence others are more on the rational intelligence but it surprises me how many people are not sympathetic and lack empathy and if that is the case that that can cause you some insurmountable problems in regards to communication with people that are not from your cultural area and control of people yeah you're dealing with human beings and they're scared and they don't speak the language and it's not their their home their environment nothing so I think yeah if you if you don't do that you you you have to keep that in mind even when you do your PA's you have to think about these things and this is why I went straight down into layman's terms and and spoke in layman's terms and gave it to them eventually workout in the cockpit that we have 100 meters of spare runway so at four kilometers we will end up with 100 meters as we start in the approach mark the second officer says should I talk to Michael yeah and that was a really good prompt and I thought oh of course we need to give Michael the brief before we come into land we're only about five minutes from landing so mark the second officer goes back and he says to you I think Michael I'm just letting you know there's going to be a very tight landing there might be a runway overrun and a passenger evacuation and are you ready what did you say back I can tell you what you said back Mark said you came back in your very strong confident German accent saying mark the aircraft the cabin crew and the passengers are ready you had already briefed them that they could be an overrun they all were prepared for an overrun they all knew they had all been given the worst case but been given the confidence to do their job and you had prepared the passengers I mean again this is just from a leader's perspective in a crisis you'd the third to expertise in a crisis you don't micromanage and and the pilots we're doing our job and goal you had everyone set up four minutes later we touched down and the aircraft comes down below about 80 knots and you look at the window and think you're safe and you then give a public address stand a standard operating procedure welcome to Singapore local time is so and so please keep seated with your seat belt fastened until we've reached our final parking position and then everybody applaud it so you and the cabin crew ready for another per run an evacuation you touched down yeah and you think it's fine and you're saying welcome to Singapore I mean that just shows two things it shows professionalism and it's also shown that you can emotionally stay calm when other people are losing it's one thing to say yes I'm okay I'm calm but you actually before you press into comp to press a button you have to get your body in a state of calmness because fear spreads like a virus so you would actually I teach people the box breathing technique which is to breathe in through your nose yeah three seconds hold it breathe out if you're tense breathing into you you must breathe in and through your nose and that gives a physiological response to calm you down now you would calm when you gave that public address oh I always said and the thing is what you say in regards to staying calm so I know now how I respond but what I want to say to the way I do it what happens to me is that I extremely focused I focus extremely so I hear nothing else when the engine blew up initially and then through our holding pattern up there the only thing actually I heard was the engine I was the engine the engine was overriding everything sometimes I was looking at all these lights and the ding ding ding and I didn't hear it I didn't hear it I heard the engine no matter where I was in the aircraft I heard the engine because I thought any change in in the rotation or whatever we better be on the ball and then this is why I also said to the crew I say it only wants to you listen very carefully look at me and then at the end I want you to confirm that you understood this and that was through the in the end through the entire flight but despite me being like a robot it relaxed everybody else and the crew was well and as one of these crew members said yeah we took strain he knew what he was doing and we took strength from this you know but when we landed then in Singapore in the end and I did my PA and you didn't turn off the runway I looked out of the window and first I thought oh they've put some support pillars under inflatable support pillars under the wing to hold the wing up yeah and then I was looking around I didn't see anybody and then I look again and I look onto the runway and then I realized it was the fuel was just gushing out and coming up again because it was splashing on the runway and then I realized what was going on so I realized we were sitting in fuel what was happening is there were holes in the wing there were many holes inside the fuel tanks probably 15 holes at least and and because the aircraft has got its nose up a bit to fly the fuel comes down to that whole level when we land and we've slowed down a stop then the holes are now lower because the aircraft's flat fuel came out when we're on the ground faster than it was going out it was wild yeah but I tell you when I saw that and no firies I got I'm not the worst headache I've never experienced anything it felt like an eagle was landing on my shoulders and going right into my shoulders I'm splitting headache so I that was the only time I got in there but but also Michael can see fuel gushing out of the wing but he didn't say what it's gushing out of the wing near a landing gear leg that has four breaks that he Michael knows and probably going to be close to white hot that might inflame the fuel that's right so yeah and anyway and then I didn't see any firies I didn't see any foam so and then I was desperate trying to get you on the phone because that wasn't working so I was running to another door now then into the galley and then you were on and you said something but somehow I interrupted you and I said captain that there's fuel running out and there's no firies to be seen anywhere and then he said no they're sitting in the back there because we can't shut an engine down that there's tenders sitting there and they'll coming with a foam soon and then somehow I reflex you did your PA and then I relaxed a bit again back into the other mode and then I looked out and then all of a sudden miles away there came one in space suit you know and then he stood there looked like the man in the moon there are all right somebody's coming and then as soon as he was there where he was supposed to be I guess the foam was coming and that's when I started to relax again what's happening in the cabin in terms of the alarms or the lights during this time going that was still going so but there are alarms going off is the evacuation signal going off yeah they were going off and it was again the older flight attendants said come the other star and said no but the evacuation signal tells the cabin crew to evacuate correct why did they evacuate because it didn't make sense the engine was still running we hadn't heard anything from the flight deck and I haven't said anything either there was no clear indication that we should evacuate and on our side we couldn't have done it anyway because it was swimming in to you now to put you into perspective Dave and the flight deck the other captain and again if you're not aware of this the technical background in the cockpit of this the first podcast covers it they've things what's happening on the ground is now more dangerous and stressful than what happened in here Dave is severely more stressed you're walking in the cabin the evacuation signals going off a less perfect crew would just open up the doors and evacuate which would have been the wrong thing to do and you're managing the crew we can't talk to you on the intercom so I can do a public address to the whole whole aeroplane and so that's what we do but again we're busy because you didn't realize that at that time more emergencies are happening in the flight deck and we're really distracted managing that we also have to be aware of whether to evacuate and that's a very complex decision making process so if anyone thinks this emergency was either when we stopped it wasn't it was like a bushfire going in but that sort of say for me that was the worst part of the entire of the entire emergency that the time on the ground there till we finally were able to all get the door open but that that was just horrific to see how the fuel was coming out and how it was swimming on the runway and we were sitting in it so I never thought one wrong move and this whole thing blows up so I made a very stern a very strong stern announcement no no toilet visits because of the flush no mobile phones no laptops nothing because one one spark and maybe we're not making it off the aircraft so we're sitting at the moment in a very in a very unpleasant situation so please no no no now that's sage that we spend two hours in the air and now we're about to spend two hours on the ground before the last passenger gets off I said make sure that there are two pilots that now walk around the aircraft don't answer in questions and they're coming back to the cockpit saying the passengers are happy they're calm and and this is because of you Michael there's absolutely because of you even though you're not calm you're you're putting on a calm face to the passengers and they're staying united as a team we're going in you know from the second to our fourth hour you're managing the cabin and then we we actually tried to get steps to come to the the airport to send steps to the airport Dave tried to contact someone at the airport ended up getting to the receptionist at the Singapore airport who who didn't quite understand anything operational she was really just a telephony passing extension so Dave gave up with that we we did eventually get stairs and then what happened the firemen were about to come to the aircraft the fire and we'd organised for them to go off at the right right hand door number two which is just near the wing correct yeah our training was correct the door open but I can't see how you crack a door open of the size of the A380 and secure yourself there with one hand mind you and with the other one you're back to the min and and people may want to brush off the aeroplane just cover you out correct I mean there have been in the last two years many people have died around the world from falling from open air craft doors and airports there was one in Sydney just a few months ago these are tragic things they're falling meters and and the the air bus doors are up to eight meters off the off the runway which is concrete or bitumen so I do remember going to the back and we haven't actually mentioned that when we shut down the engines the auxiliary power unit at the back that would give us air conditioning and power that failed so you had no lighting so we're on emergency lights we had no air conditioning and we're sitting in the 35 degrees Singapore midday sun so the aircraft is so hot people are saying I'm about to faint and the people at the back when I walked around they said we want to open the door and give us some fresh air which I remember saying to them if I open the door I put you to risk do you want to die I said that yeah I said we're going to keep the doors closed to keep you alive and if you think you're going to faint then we will take you up to the very front door one door was open all the doors were closed also because we had to have them ready to evacuate in case things went wrong with you to activate the slides to get off quickly you must have the door closed that's right so they had to be closed to enable the slides for a quicker evacuation so it was still it was stressful in that regard with people overheating and fainting so there were 340 passengers on QF32 how many injuries do we have getting them off the air crash as far as I'm aware none none zero yeah I mean I'm still I still look sometimes and think how on earth that we got these so disciplined over over and done with they didn't jump up they didn't clock the aisle said they didn't run and I have to go first and I you know I don't want this nothing they said there and it was hot as you said before and I felt sorry for the ones in the back because there were the last ones to go there's a funny story that when the you've opened that right one door a face met you when you opened it who was the face and what did he ask yeah the first the first one I see I saw was the fire officer in charge and he came up so the doors opened and then he came up he said yeah good morning good morning I'm the chief here who's responsible for the aircraft for the cabin I said that would be me but he said I'm taken over from here now he also you can have it all I was happy I was so happy because and then I thought well he knows the situation so I sent the passenger stream but he knows what's going on out there I don't you know because somebody said to me you never handed over to anybody I said first of all I'm in a different jurisdiction which was Singapore secondly I've got somebody in front of me who knows exactly what he has to do and what is being done and what the situation out there is I have no clue but he was standing there and coordinating it between the the buses that came down there because I had no control over this place this fireman there's triage there's all there's layers like an onion of rings of services that had surrounded the aircraft a very complex structure which the airport did a really good job yes I think so too and was very well organized and we need to amplify the whilst the the people walking down the stairs onto the bus we still have fuel pouring from the left-hand wind that's right we still have engine number one that we can't shut down it's pumping hot air over the time act yeah there are so many risks outside the aircraft this was at still a very tense operation yeah I think but we were managing risk and risk understanding rating and living with risk is part of the elements of resilience and we were managing the risk dynamically the whole time yeah and we still had to stay at the north just in case you know so that was two hours before the passengers were off the aircraft and then they read the airport for another three hours and I remember we debriefed let's say we the crew all debriefed in the hotel from out the following six hours yeah in the airport and and that was I remember that I went to the barman and I said give the people give the crew whatever they want for as long as they want it and that bill was over four thousand dollars I didn't realize that ordering crew it was worth it because eight is everything for a job amazingly well done mind you in the in the hotel room at the hotel in the bar I remember seeing CNN showing images of three eighties crashing right so so the stress had not finished by then in fact I didn't even call my wife till midnight that's another topic of which I'm ashamed about but my point is that by midnight we debriefed all the crew they went to bed and they were happy right finished yeah and then the next day we get on an aircraft we get on a Boeing 747 with a different engine to fly from Singapore back to Sydney we're passing during we're not operating we're all passing during the crews happy then what happens Michael that that was very unfortunate all the few things I think in regards to that that were unfortunate so we get on I was sitting on the upper deck which was business class at the time and the crew was spread over the aircraft I didn't know where they were sitting but they were spread amongst passengers in economy anyway so we're taking off we hear a thought I knew what it was and we returned back to Singapore because we had an engine failure one engine backfired so two engine failures in two days yeah that couldn't believe it but I also said we're not flying back home tomorrow so what I need to do now is we have to get this behind us go to an hotel sleep get this day behind us we have to get into this mental rhythm again we arrive in Singapore tomorrow but fly back to Sydney and I must say that then cabin crew manager she was good so they organized it and then we flew back to Sydney and so the cabin crew got home and then all kinds of investigations happened it was the longest investigation in the Australian transport safety bureaus history because so many things went on and I think the people around the world in aviation were astounded at the number of decisions that you had to make the fact that all the decisions you made were correct even if people disagree it doesn't matter right everyone got off their their safe and and again the people who criticized weren't there that's right yeah a really good leader is someone has had a disagreement with leadership so they have to step up and say no this is what's going to happen that they know what they must do through their responsibility and that they won't just be a sicker fan so you've ticked so many boxes now have what I'm telling you many airlines have looked at QF32 and use it as a benchmark I'm talking about you and the cabin that you what you did in the cabin is a benchmark for airlines around the world British Airways they study what you did in the cabin to great detail virgin Australia do courses on QF32 JAL right JAL they had that evacuation last year maybe the reason people got off that aircraft and they all left their luggage behind is because of what have you did on QF32 to keep all the luggage and that's success love tons are yeah your soul mates Emirates I think they still have it in their emergency procedures training but they got that many air buses but they have it in there and every time I fly with Emirates they recognize me then they want an autographs then they want a photo and then they talk but it's interesting it's nice yeah and you deserve a very bit of it I think profoundly what what you set up in that aircraft during the crisis was trust the passengers trusted you and the crew and they were putting their lives in your hands and they trusted you to protect them and you did and that was profound and the consequence was that when they left the airport they were press everywhere the press had been now prime for the last four hours before six hours six hours before they were there ready to criticize Rolls Royce Airbus Quantus the pilots the cabin crew and say the passengers were scared the passengers actually were so proud of what you did they actually refused they refused to give the media anything negative they refused to say a single bad thing about you your crew and the airline and even even the Airbus so the result was that added this black swan event which was unforecast and had a severe consequence Quantus actually came out with a brand that was stronger than before the incident happened I mean this is this is the ultimate test of resilience to come out stronger after adversity I think people misunderstand success in resilience to be successful you just have to have a passion some discipline and execute and you could be the best horse sure in Sydney that there aren't any horses in Sydney to be resilient you need again knowledge training experience team correct leadership decision-making crisis management and risk this is what happened this is what you have this is what you did and and the result means that that in your case our case failure was not an option and we we passed really well because we were resilient to me what you did is a perfect example of resilience and and I Lord you and applaud you at every opportunity when I talk around the world right you are absolutely my hero Michael has been a true honor and privilege to interview you I love you to death I respect you immensely and again on behalf of 469 passengers and crew and all their loved ones who will be affected there'll be 32,000 people who would be traumatized if 469 people perished all these second victims you help save all those people from the traumatic stress yeah thank you very much for that Richard it's been a true pleasure Michael thank you thank you very much don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of fly and if you have a question about aviation or resilience you can email me at [email protected]