Every company thinks about the security of their executive personnel and top executives who are frequently travelling worldwide. There are many business travel security concepts reported and implemented so far. All of them are perfectly taking care of the living.
But who thinks about the unexpected? Who takes care of worst-case scenarios, scenarios in which a company has to step in front of the press reporting fatalities? Who takes care of preparing and monitoring the identification process? Who takes care of the human remains being correctly repatriated in respect and dignity? Who assures the victims families, on behalf of the company´s management, that the company has done a sufficient disaster scenario planning and has prepared for the worst happen?
The identification of disaster victims can be an extremely difficult and lengthy task. The methods of the identification process can be studied in detail in the Disaster Victim Identification Guide published on the Interpol website.
Ante mortem data are often incomplete, sometimes difficult to access in a reasonable time or even lost in a disaster itself, lacking an out of office backup solution.
The unique human dental status is one of the proven identification methods worldwide. It survives almost any damage and is perfectly suitable for the reasons of corporate disaster preparedness. But only a perfect documentation, supervised by an experienced forensic expert will lead to a fast success.
Thus, a qualified pre-disaster biometric odontologic documentation and biometric odontologic data quality control of all frequent travelling personnel or personnel on missions in hazardous environments should be implemented.
The Sundance Resources Ltd. air crash near Cameroon 2010 showed that corporate disaster preparedness is still underestimated. The identification of the victims of this particular air crash lasted far too long, the financial impact on the shareholder value was significant.
After the Mangalore air crash 2010 there have been press reports that victims have been released only by visual comparison. The Telegraph reported that the bodies of a dozen victims of the Air India Express crash may have been given to the wrong families for burial or cremation, according to the airline.
Would your company be prepared for that?
Any company should think about their disaster preparedness policies and if they could prevent such a disaster within a disaster. Maybe the probability of such an incident is small but in the event that the risk scenario materializes it will be disastrous for the company´s public relations.
It will also damage the families trust that companies ensure that they are taking care of their human resources even in the most difficult scenarios.
On the other hand, a perfectly performed disaster preparedness in this field of expertise leads to a rock-solid corporate crisis communication.
