<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 26 March 2015, two days after Germanwings flight 4U9525 crashed in the French Alps, the Marseille public prosecutor met the families, then stepped in front of the press. Until that moment, we at Lufthansa had been communicating about an accident. But within minutes it had become something else entirely \u2013 and the defining words had not come from us. In fact, we heard the prosecutor’s words at the same time as everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The night before, The New York Times had reported that one pilot was locked out of the cockpit. When the article hit the wires, I was taking a break after my second day in Germanwings\u2019 crisis centre. Minutes later, I was back in that very room with my peers, revisiting our narrative and anticipating what this would mean for the airline. The next morning, the prosecutor gave the answer: this was no accident, but a murder-suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have thought about that moment a great deal over the past week, watching events around flydubai flight FZ1073 unfold. The two events are very different: In 2015, a suicidal co-pilot took 149 lives along with his own; on 30 September 2026, everyone on board survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet structurally, they teach the same lesson. Once a crisis acquires a criminal or political dimension (or both), ownership of the narrative passes from the company to the state \u2013 or, as in this case, to several states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of 9 October, the sequence of events is largely undisputed. On 30 September, on a scheduled flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, the first officer attacked the captain, Smit Machchhar, with the flight deck’s emergency axe. The aircraft lost around 17,400 feet in under two minutes. Despite severe injuries, the captain was able to unlock the flight deck door. Passengers overpowered the attacker, and a second crew member travelling on board landed the aircraft safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The picture has since sharpened considerably. The UAE’s Attorney General has called the act attempted terrorism. UAE investigators now say the first officer intended to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion Airport, modelled on 9\/11, and had used two earlier flights to Tel Aviv to familiarise himself with the route and the airport. According to the Wall Street Journal, Oman Air had moved him off flying duties in 2024 over concerns about radicalisation; he left the airline in 2025 and joined flydubai in January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much remains open. The first officer, reported to be an Omani national, has not been officially identified. Whether he acted alone or on someone’s behalf is still under investigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What follows is about communication, not about guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What struck me most in the first week after the FZ1073 incident was not a lack of facts but rather the abundance of narratives. Each government involved told its own story \u2013 coherent from its own perspective, but hard to reconcile with the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Media in each country largely followed its own government’s framing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cNone of these narratives was told by the airline.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
None of these narratives was invented, but together they do not add up to one consistent story. And, most importantly, none of them was told by the airline. The Israeli case is a prime example of how short the shelf life of a hero narrative can be: within a week, the question had shifted from who saved the aircraft to who failed to stop the attacker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aviation makes such competing narratives especially likely. Whether state-owned or private, airlines act as a proxy for national pride and identity. A government may throw its weight behind one of its most important national symbols \u2013 the UAE’s swift public praise for the crew is a case in point. But when several jurisdictions are involved, governments can just as easily politicise an incident for their own ends, and the airline’s own voice gets lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nationalised employee<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For corporate communicators, the most instructive thread is what happened to the captain. Within 48 hours, an airline employee was on a widely broadcast video call with his head of government, talking about his faith, his family and the language his children speak at home. Mr Modi told him: “Indians don’t take lives, they risk their own to save others.” Meanwhile, partisans on social media were already arguing about the captain’s own political sympathies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notably, the captain himself did not fit the role he was being given. On that same call, he insisted that the others on board had played an equal part. The story told about him had already outgrown the man \u2013 and neither he nor his employer could rein it in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cFew crisis manuals cover this scenario: In an international workforce, any employee can become a national symbol overnight \u2013 as hero or as villain.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Although aviation is multinational by nature, few crisis manuals cover this scenario. In an international workforce, any employee can become a national symbol overnight \u2013 as hero or as villain. That employee then speaks directly with heads of state, and the employer has no say in how the story is told. FZ1073 had an Indian captain, an Omani first officer and off-duty pilots reported to be Russian and Ukrainian. Each of them carries a potential national narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Restraint as a position<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Against this backdrop, flydubai’s communication reads differently. Its statements were factual and few. The airline deferred to the investigating authorities and asked all parties not to speculate. Its CEO thanked the captain, the crew who landed the aircraft, the passengers who helped, and the Saudi and UAE authorities. All by the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would be easy to mistake this for silence or stonewalling. I see it as a deliberate position \u2013 and probably the only one available. An airline that employs everyone involved cannot adopt any single national story without alienating part of its workforce, its passengers or its host governments. In a field of competing narratives, neutrality is not an absence of communication, but a strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question for the whole industry<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
One issue lies beyond the reach of any communication strategy: security. According to current reporting, every link in the chain relied on another. Oman Air did not pass its concerns about its former pilot to the UAE. flydubai reportedly checked his criminal record but did not consult Omani authorities. flydubai says it always submitted its crew lists to Israel as required; in Israel, those lists were apparently never retrieved or checked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cOne issue lies beyond the reach of any communication strategy: security.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
After 4U9525, the debate centred on pilots’ mental health and medical confidentiality, and a structural fault line between treating doctors and the licensing authorities. After FZ1073, it will centre on security intelligence and cross-border information sharing. Both are, at heart, questions of who knows what \u2013 and who may tell whom. Communicators belong in the room when these processes are designed. When they fail, we are the ones who have to explain them \u2013 ideally without the public finger-pointing between agencies now playing out in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three take-away-lessons for preparation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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- Map the second voice<\/strong>.\u00a0Anticipate who is likely to take over the narrative if a crisis turns criminal or political \u2013 and rehearse being the second voice, not the first.
<\/li>\n\n\n\n- Plan for nationalised employees<\/strong>.\u00a0In a multinational workforce, prepare for heroes, victims and perpetrators becoming national symbols, including support for employees and families when governments call. Think ahead about whether and how you will respond.
<\/li>\n\n\n\n- Restraint can be powerful<\/strong>.\u00a0When several national stories compete, the organisation that does not pick one keeps its credibility with all of them. In a heated debate, being silent can be an asset.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
The passengers of FZ1073 survived. Five stories have been told and reshaped since then. The investigation \u2013 and the long phase of repair \u2013 has only just begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note: This article first appeared on 16 October 2026 on CIPR’s crisis communications network blog page<\/a>. Newer developments and findings are not reflected in the analysis. Thanks to Chris\u00a0Tucker\u00a0and Rod Cartwright for reviewing this text and adding valuable input.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n