Your partner in crisis – readiness, response, recovery October 2017 GoCrisis moved to new offices in the UK in July, reflecting our intentions to continue to grow our presence in Europe. Our UK offices are now in Chertsey, Surrey, just 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport and surrounding warehousing and logistical infrastructure. The UK office is managed by our Managing Director, Elmarie Marais, who shares her time with our other regional centres. Anna Carrel joins us in the UK and brings her experience in the care and medical sector to our group. We also moved to larger offices in Perth, Australia, also closer to airport and warehousing facilities. We now operate across eight key regional centres: China, Australia, the US, UK, South Africa, India, South East Asia and the Middle East. We believe that the people closest to a crisis makes the biggest difference and have therefore built our response capacity around this, with core regional response teams around the world. We are supported by an experienced team of associates and more than a thousand GoResponders across 34 countries. GoCrisis invests heavily in the engagement and annual training of our regional teams - we look after our people so that they can look after those who are most affected in times of crisis. Our new home Our new UK offices in Chertsey, Surrey, just 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport. The UK office is managed by our Managing Director, Elmarie Marais (left), who shares her time with our other regional centres.
Transcript
Your partner in crisis – readiness, response, recovery
October 2017
GoCrisis moved to new offices in the UK in July, reflecting our intentions to continue to grow our presence in Europe. Our UK offices are now in Chertsey, Surrey, just 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport and surrounding warehousing and logistical infrastructure. The UK office is managed by our Managing Director, Elmarie Marais, who shares her time with our other regional centres.
Anna Carrel joins us in the UK and brings her experience in the care and medical sector to our group. We also moved to larger offices in Perth, Australia, also closer to airport and warehousing facilities.
We now operate across eight key regional centres: China, Australia, the US, UK, South Africa, India, South East Asia and the Middle East. We believe that the people closest to a crisis makes the biggest difference and have therefore built our response capacity around this, with core regional response teams around the world.
We are supported by an experienced team of associates and more than a thousand GoResponders across 34 countries.
GoCrisis invests heavily in the engagement and annual training of our regional teams - we look after our people so that they can look after those who are most affected in times of crisis.
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Our new home
Our new UK offices in Chertsey, Surrey, just 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport.
The UK office is managed by our Managing Director, Elmarie Marais (left), who shares her time with our other regional centres.
On July 17, three years after the Malaysia Airlines MH17 disaster, 2 000 relatives attended the unveiling of a beautiful memorial park in the Netherlands. Asmaa Aljuned, wife of first officer Hakimi was there too. We asked her what the memorial meant to her.
“Three years have passed and sorrows have well resonated with us. We have moved on, with whatever strength that we could muster, but there will always be a piece of a broken heart that we will carry… And what is needed, is to find a place for this broken piece to finally belong.
“I needed that. As the need to carry on with life, I have the need to let the broken piece of me find a place for solace. A place where the broken hearts can be remembered, not that it is forgotten – and never will be – but a place where
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Asmaa Aljuned reading the name of First Officer Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi, her husband, on the monument. (Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi)
Asmaa Aljuned and Intan Darlina Muhammad at the unveiling of the park of remembrance.
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Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17
We have a tree each, a symbol of life. We have the monument, the symbol of hope. We are given a place to gather, seeking strength in each other, to look back in
time, and to realise the long road that we had to take. We have come this far.
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that piece can dwell in its existence of pain and loss.
“It is that piece of broken heart that defines who I am now, that shapes whatever future life may carry. That piece that reminds me of the life I have lost and the love I will never have.
“I have never thought there was much meaning in remembrance, as I am reminded of it every single day. But truly, walking into the park on that very same date the tragedy took place, a new-found remembrance swept us away. The soft whisper of a summer breeze, the warm sunlight, the rows and rows of beautiful sunflowers, as we try to imagine the departure of our loved ones.
“They have departed. That word hit hard, as I walked on the path into the park. What hit harder was seeing his name, on a metal plaque placed at his tree, the tree they planted just for him.
It is that piece of broken heart that defines who I am now, that shapes
whatever future life may carry. That piece that reminds me of the life I have
lost and the love I will never have.
“He is no longer with us, I thought to myself as I felt myself crumble.
“I looked around, and I saw the others. The others who also had a piece of their hearts broken. I searched for the strength within them. I saw the pain in their eyes, but I could also see the life within them – they survived.
"We survived.“We are all here, alive and living. We continued,
we lived. But the loss is within each of us, hurt is within each one of us and, with flowers in hand, we wept at the remembrance. But this time, our remembrance was given a physique.
“We have a tree each, a symbol of life. We have
the monument, the symbol of hope. We are given a place to gather, seeking strength in each other, to look back in time, and to realise the long road that we had to take. We have come this far.
“The park and the commemoration gave us that space to evoke all those emotions and the feelings – long suppressed. We have graves, we have photos, we have the memories. But this was something else; it was a park made with full tribute to the fallen victims. It was for them. All about them. Their trees, their names, their monument, their park of remembrance.
“This park is that piece of broken heart brought to life.”
Shivaji GhoshGoCrisis would like to extend a very warm welcome to Colonel Shivaji Ranjan Ghosh to our leadership team and GoCrisis family as VP Operations South Asia.
Shivaji is based in Mumbai, India, and served in the Indian Army from December 1974 to September 2005 as a commissioned officer. He commanded an Infantry Battalion in operations and served with the National Security Guard, India’s elite counter-terrorist force.
Since November 2005, he has worked in the emergency response and safety departments of various airlines in India and the Middle East. Shivaji is an instructor approved by IATA and other service providers and has conducted a wide range of training courses for airlines and airports.
Besides having vast experience in crisis management in the military, he has also responded to the crash of Air India Express in Mangalore, India.
Col Ghosh has been instrumental in authoring the ERP and SMS manuals in Oman Air, RAK Airways and Jet Airways.
Anna CarrelAnna Carrel has been appointed as Operations Director for GoCrisis in the UK and Europe.
Anna has six years experience in the health and care industries. She has extensive contact centre experience, including at Bupa, a global private medical insurance provider where she managed difficult calls and decisions involving approving or denying private medical treatment.
She supported the HR and volunteer services at Thames Hospice in the United Kingdom. Thames Hospice is an NGO providing expert care for people living with life-limiting illnesses. A vital part of their work is also supporting their loved ones.
Anna was part a highly skilled team who works with the patient, their family and carers, to develop a complete programme of care tailored to their individual needs at the Hospice in Windsor or in the patients homes. Before joining GoCrisis, Anna was Senior Pre-Boarding Coordinator, leading a large team at Cielo, an outsource global recruitment company recruiting talent for the healthcare, life sciences, financial, engineering, consumer and IT industries.
In July 2016 the General Civil Aviation Authority published a Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) to prepare for the introduction of a regulation mandating that each UAE operator and airport will implement a Family Assistance Plan.
Many operators already have such plans and these plans meet most of the regulatory requirements contained in the regulation.
This regulation affirms the commitment of the UAE to:a) ensure that adequate and sufficient assistance is provided to aircraft accident victims and their families;b) establish legislation, regulations and/or policies required to implement effective coordination and control of the efforts to provide the required family assistance;c) require that air operators flying to and from the UAE implement family assistance plans, and ensure that these plans are exercised regularly, supervised and audited as necessary;d) require that airport operators implement family assistance plans, which can be part of their Airport Emergency Plans, in coordination with air operators, and ensure that these plans are exercised regularly, supervised and audited as necessary; ande) require air operators to have proper arrangements with airports in which they operate, so as to facilitate the provision of family assistance in the event of an accident.
The air operators will own the family assistance plan. Air operators will be required
UAE family-assistance plan regulation
Chief Air Accident Investigator, General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Air Accident Investigation Sector (AAIS)
Tom Curran
to have trained family assistance volunteers, or arrangements for the provision of such personnel, and a family assistance plan that complies with the regulation.
Aspects of the air operators plan may be subcontracted to a third party, but ultimate responsibility for the plan rests with the operator.
Airport operators will activate their family assistance plan, in co-ordination with the air operator involved, following an accident. The airport will provide a private and secure family reception center to which relatives can be brought before being transferred to the family assistance center.
The police and civil defence should provide information to the family members on their response to the accident. Depending on the circumstances, it is possible that many government departments will be involved. Where this is the case the UAE National Emergency Management Authority (NCEMA) will play a key role in providing the leadership in coordinating and integrating the family assistance aspects of the emergency plan which are carried out by government entities.
An aircraft accident is an unexpected and frequently catastrophic event.
Concern for persons who have suffered distress and loss as the result of aircraft
accidents has led to increased efforts within the aviation industry to establish
means by which the needs of victims and their families can be addressed in a
The GCAA will exercise oversight of the aviation aspects of the Family Assistance Plan through a program of audits and monitoring of exercises.
Family Assistance Plan Coordinator
The GCAA will establish a position of Family Assistance Plan Coordinator. The Family Assistance Plan Coordinator will manage all aspects of the Family Assistance Plan at the Federal Government level. The Coordinator will ensure the participation of the Family Assistance Plan organisations, including appropriate UAE Federal Government entities, and UAE and foreign aviation industry stakeholders.
Among the key responsibilities of the Family Assistance Coordinator will be to ensure that all aspects of the Family Assistance Plan are fit for purpose and are verified by regular audits and exercises.
The Coordinator will arrange appropriate exercises and closely monitor and record the results of these exercises to evaluate plan
UAE family-assistance plan regulation
readiness. He/she will establish annual targets for publishing material to ensure that there is a good knowledge of the plan among government and industry stakeholders, and the general public.
The Family Assistance Coordinator will also be responsible for arranging and facilitating a set number of Family Assistance Plan training sessions for government and industry stakeholders each year.
The Family Assistance regulation NPA is available on the GCAA website and comments from industry and the public will be accepted up to 31 December 2016.
Gill Sparrow presented on what it takes to lead the Emergency Response Planning Team for Emirates. “Long, detailed plans need to be replaced by bullet-point plans and checklists that are easy to read, understand and action in crisis.”
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“The compliance date for the new UAE Family Assistance Regulation is 1 January 2018,” said Tom Curran, Chief Air Accident Investigator, General Civil Aviation Authority. Please read his article included in our newsletter for more details on this topic.
“It was the small gestures that mattered the most. I wanted to be treated like a human and not like a victim… The care team made a huge difference in my recovery. They were helpful, impartial and caring.” Asmaa Aljuned, wife of MH17 First Officer Ha-kimi.
GoCrisis hosted an Aviation Emergency Management Forum in Dubai at the Steigenberger Hotel on 14 May 2017. The event was attended by leading airlines, airports and authorities from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
We want to express our sincere appreciation to the individuals and organisations who contributed to the success of the day. Particularly our speakers, who gave the time to share their valuable knowledge and experience with the audience.
In our line of work, the experience we gain often comes at a huge personal expense, and this is what makes it an even bigger privilege to hear the voices of people who have first-hand experience of the unthinkable.
Thank you to the delegates who attended this day from all over the region and beyond. And, of course, to our own team at GoCrisis for your hard work in organising the day.
Our VP Operations MENA, Salah Mudara moderated the event and our day was filled with thought-provoking topics and discussions.
Other speakers included:Elmarie Marais MD GoCrisis and Volunteer Incident Commander, Red Cross “The agency’s perspective”Barbara Kracht Former Airbus VP Media Relations “The crisis communicator’s perspective”Ibrahim Addasi Chief Air Accident Investigator, Air Accident Investigation Sector UAE General Civil Aviation Authority “The investigator’s perspective”Darlina MuhammadFormer Care Team Manager, Malaysia Airlines, GoCrisis VP Family Support “Taking care of people and lessons learnt from MH370 and MH17”
What our delegates thought of the day:“Thank you for hosting a very beneficial day, it was very educational and I am glad I got the opportunity to be a part of it. Darlina’s and Asmaa’s session was an eye-opener, I was left speechless during the Q&A.”“I have taken a lot back and hope I can implement the lessons in some part of my career.”“This was one of the best events I have ever attended. Thank you!”“We need more of these events. Thank you for a very educational day.”
Successful emergency drill for Hainan AirlinesHainan Airlines carried out an emergency
drill on June 27 that involved multiple locations: Hainan’s Emergency Operation Centre at the Meilin base, Sydney Airport Station, GoCrisis Crisis Management Centre and the GoCrisis Call Centre, and WoJia information division call center.
The scenario was that of an aircraft running out of runway at Sydney Airport and the team practiced a series of emergency response actions.
The drill included internal communications and staff activation, collecting crucial information, overseas station response, Family Assistance activation by GoCrisis, crisis communications, GoCrisis call centre service for media and family members, and wreckage removal.
Hainan held their 2017 emergency training course for the Emergency Response core team at the HNA group headquarters in Haiku on 12 July.
It was hosted by Liu-Changqing, the airline’s emergency manager. Vincent Bertucci, Senior Manager of Emergency Response and Humanitarian Assistance at United Airlines presented on how they approach emergency response.
Elmarie Marais, MD of GoCrisis Management, presented on emergency-management leadership, difficult decision-making and the importance of being a good leader before crisis hits.
GoCrisis GoResponders include an incredible team of people with each and every one of them bringing compassion, expertise, professionalism and skill to our response capacity.
We believe in having regional response teams (ours are in 34 countries and counting!) who can get to the client or affected site quickly, speak the language, understand the culture and provide
Coming soon: Be ready and prepared for future deployments!
Soon we will be launching the GoResponder 24/7 online training website. This will enable you to do training online in three easy steps, from any device – PC, tablet or mobile phone – anywhere, at any time. More to come soon!
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hands on deck to our clients when they need it.Our GoResponders can be found in: Argentina,
Australia, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Columbia, Egypt, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, NZ, Nigeria, Portugal, Philippines, Qatar, Roatan, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, Russia, Taiwan, Trinidad, UAE, USA, UK and Zambia.
GoCrisis was delighted to host a visit from Sichuan Airlines in Sydney. The visit included a full audit of our facilities and response capabilities. Sichuan Airlines is based in Chengdu, China, with a fleet size of 130 aircraft. They service 67 destinations including Australia, The Middle East, Europe and North America.
Hendrik Crous (Vice President Operations Africa) facilitated Psychological First Aid training. This exercise is based on visual interpretation in identifying the immediate needs of survivors or families of survivors. The triage concept is used where injuries take priority, but with the array of survivors, there are other issues that the responding team will have to deal with, such as unattended children, language barriers, the elderly and the frail.
GoResponder Training, Dubai, 2017. Follow this link to watch a short YouTube video of the training: https://youtu.be/N6ZKLaV8TGk
GoResponder Training, India, 2017. Follow this link to watch a short YouTube video of the training: https://youtu.be/cca1xKnQEJQ
The Virgin Atlantic team worked with GoCrisis to arrange an incredibly successful event where more than a hundred of Virgin’s staff and peers from other airlines and airports could benefit from learning through the experiences of the individuals who lived through the ordeal of both MH17 and MH370.Thank you to Tiggy for filling the room with such an engaging audience and for Asmaa Aljuned (widow of MH17 First Officer), Darlina Muhammad (Care Team Manager MH17 and MH370) and Wilfred Kreuger (Station Manager) for telling their stories.“Please pass on my thanks again to everyone. It was a huge success and everyone is still talking about it here!” – Tiggy Thiagarajah, Head of Operations Planning and Resilience, Virgin Atlantic.
