Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgment
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction: How Teamwork Is More Important than Technical Prowess
- 1 Rethinking Normal Accidents and Human Error – A New View of Crisis Management
- 2 USS Greeneville – The Downside of Charismatic Leadership
- 3 The Hillsborough Football Disaster – Explosive Team Chemistry
- 4 American Airlines Flight 587 – Latent Failures Align
- 5 Bristol Royal Infirmary – The Price of Organizational Overreach
- 6 US Airways Flight 1549 – Thinking through Crisis
- 7 Team Resource Management
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The Hillsborough Football Disaster – Explosive Team Chemistry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgment
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction: How Teamwork Is More Important than Technical Prowess
- 1 Rethinking Normal Accidents and Human Error – A New View of Crisis Management
- 2 USS Greeneville – The Downside of Charismatic Leadership
- 3 The Hillsborough Football Disaster – Explosive Team Chemistry
- 4 American Airlines Flight 587 – Latent Failures Align
- 5 Bristol Royal Infirmary – The Price of Organizational Overreach
- 6 US Airways Flight 1549 – Thinking through Crisis
- 7 Team Resource Management
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The thing that sticks in my mind … is the state of panic that … overcame the senior officers. The command structure of the force totally broke down for several minutes and no one appeared to grasp the severity of the situation.
Police Constable S. Smith on duty during the Hillsborough football disaster.On April 15, 1989, the Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest football clubs prepared for their semifinal match at Hillsborough's Sheffield Wednesday Stadium, a neutral venue in the north of England. The game was stopped only six minutes after kickoff when spectators standing in the stadium's terraced ‘pens’ behind the Liverpool goal began staggering onto the field and collapsing; ninety-six Liverpool fans were killed, many suffocating to death while standing up. More than seven hundred people were injured, four hundred received hospital treatment, and thousands more were traumatized by that day's events. Fearing a riot or outbreak of hooliganism, police actually pushed escaping fans back into the crush amidst the confusion. How could officers trained to ‘protect and serve’ have contributed to such a devastating tragedy? What happened to their sense-making capacities when the situation began to go awry?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Thinking Through CrisisImproving Teamwork and Leadership in High-Risk Fields, pp. 34 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011