| A
Failure to Communicate |
| Minutes before the Gulfstream III jet crashed short of the
runway at Aspen, Colo., the pilot already knew he had his
hands full. The airport is one of the most dangerous in the
country, and also one that pilots fear the most. |
| Adding to the already terrible location and reputation of
the airport, it was night, windy and snowing when the chartered
passenger Gulfstream made its final approach. For reasons
still unclear, the jet never made it, crashing into a hillside
near the main highway, killing all 18 aboard. |
| Authorities had predicted such a crash a decade ago, and
two days before the crash the FAA banned all nighttime "circular"
approaches into Aspen because of the unlit mountainous terrain.
But the notice, issued to regional centers including Denver,
never reached the control tower in Aspen. |
| Officials have reported that the order banning limited night
landings was sent by fax to the Aspen tower, but operators
never saw the faxed memo. No one brought this all-important
fax to the tower's attention, if it was successfully transmitted
at all. Apparently no other attempt was made to contact the
airport control tower, including a telephone call. |
| It was a classic case of, "What we have here is a failure
to communicate." The notice to the Aspen airport tower could
easily have been overlooked. The consequence of that mistake
was that 18 people died. |
| The Observer newspaper office receives approximately 700
to 1,000 faxes each week. Many of them are important to us,
such as letters to the editor, notes from readers and advertisers,
sports scores, press releases we can use and advertising insertion
orders and proofs. |
| But along with all this good stuff is a plethora of items
we can't use. And we always have to separate the wheat from
the chaff, an imperfect job in which some of the good stuff
may be discarded along with the bad. |
| E-mail communication is much the same. Most of us at The
Observer have our own e-mail addresses, all starting with
our first name and the initial of our last name and ending
with @observernews.com (tomg@observernews.com, for instance).
Added to this we have e-mail addresses for advertisements,
including classified ads, the editor, letters, sports, news,
and several others. |
| Between all of these possibilities The Observer receives
1,000 or more e-mails each week. Once again, many of them
are important, but there are hundreds of them that we cannot
use. |
| The problem is, when separating them, some of the good may
be deleted with the bad. |
| Which brings me to my point: Whatever happened to the personal
phone call? Or as e-mailers say: "Can we talk in real time?" |
| "Hey, Bob, this is John from the FAA. Don't let airplanes
land at Aspen at night. It could be deadly. Do you hear me,
Bob?" |
| "Sure do, John. Let me get this straight: No airplanes should
land at Aspen at night. Right?" |
| "Right, Bob. And pass it along." |
| That's about 20 times faster than a fax. John knows Bob
received the message, and then John can ask Bob about his
family and Bob can ask John about his golf game. What a novel
idea. |
| And whatever happened to the letter? I must say that among
the tons of mail received at The Observer office each week,
letters with hand-written addresses on them get my attention
first. Why? Because I know that correspondence with hand-written
addresses come from people who are just ordinary people or
from people who don't have or use faxes or computers, which
makes me want to read them. All the mail, even that with obvious
throw-away potential, is opened and gets at least a glance
or two. |
| I personally open all the mail that comes into The Observer
office. It allows me to keep in touch with what's going on
in Our Town and gives me the satisfaction of physically "touching"
communications. It's "real time." |
| Technology has forever changed the way we communicate with
one another. Making it effective, however, still needs some
work. I'll be anxiously awaiting your letter on this matter. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
