From: Fuzzy Maiava <qantasflight72@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019, 01:26
Subject: Attention: Mr. Chairman, Richard Goyder, and to the Qantas Board of Directors
To: <alanjoyce@qantas.com.au>
Cc: <trent.mumford@qantas.com.au>, <andrewmcginnes@qantas.com.au>

Dear Mr. Alan Joyce,

Please see attached an open letter addressed to the Qantas Chairman, Mr. Richard Goyder and to the board of directors for their urgent attention.

I will be arriving in Sydney within the next two to three weeks for three days and I think it would be a great opportunity for us to meet to present to you and the board of directors a copy of the official petition signed by more than 7000 signatures to have Qantas Captain Kevin Sullivan (Medically Ret.), First Officer Peter Lipsett, and Second Officer Ross Hales, publicly acknowledged and recognised for their heroic actions in saving the lives of 315 passengers and crew on board Qantas Flight 72 on October 7, 2008. 119 passengers and crew were injured on that flight with 12 seriously wounded.

I sincerely thank you for your time, and I look forward to your favourable response at your earliest convenience.

Kind regards,

Fuzzy Maiava
23.04.2019

E: qantasflight72@gmail.com

22 April, 2019

To the Qantas Board of Directors,

You might not know me, or you might have heard of me. I was a former flight attendant who sustained major injuries on a flight in one of your planes (An Airbus A330-200).

I am a survivor of the QF72 flight accident.

But I’m not writing for myself. Before I go into that, I do want to ask you a question, all of you on the Qantas Board. Why are you here? Why are you part of the Qantas team?

Is it because you value the companies values or because you like making a difference? Or because you like being part of one of Australia’s biggest companies, spreading joy across customers when they hop onto any Qantas flight?

Please, ask yourself why. Why do you do what you do? In life, we live for a purpose, so I know you have a purpose being part of the Qantas group.

Again, you may not know who I am, but I was once part of that group, the Qantas family. Serving customers on their journey from A to B, providing the best level of care as only Qantas expect, until it all came falling apart.

But not just for me, for other Qantas team members and those flying on the aircraft that day.

If you’re not aware of the incident I’m about to share, I would be disappointed, but not shocked.

On October 7, 2008, our lives were changed forever. Heading on the Singapore to Perth flight, it was just like any other flight. The safety announcement was done, the passengers set in for an enjoyable flight, without realising it was soon to be the flight from hell.

If you don’t already know the full story, let me summarise it for you.

The plane was just over the Indian Ocean, I was the flight attendant on that flight, so at the time I was preparing the meal service until I was on the roof of the aircraft.

The plane recovered from its first plunge but then again took another nosedive heading for the ocean, heading to end all the 315 lives on the plane. But it didn’t and you know why? It was because of Captain Kevin Sullivan and his flight crew, First Officer Peter Lipsett and Second Officer Ross Hales.

One of the planes autopilot systems disconnected on that day, which left all of the 315 lives in the hands of Captain Sullivan and his team. The Qantas manual was deemed useless as it didn’t prepare the crew for this kind of failure.

So this meant, Captain Sullivan had to use his Navy training to save our lives and obviously you know the outcome because I am here today to tell you this story. He successfully and skilfully managed to land that plane not in the ocean, but at Learmonth Airport, on the North Coast of Western Australia. Not only did the team save us from going head first into the Indian Ocean, but managed to safely land at an airport.

Now you know the background, you know that if it wasn’t for the heroic action of Captain Kevin Sullivan and his flight crew, First Officer Peter Lipsett and Second Officer Ross Hales, Qantas would have had a lot to answer if 315 people didn’t make it home from that flight.

How can you not count your lucky stars? These three men single handily saved Qantas from a huge crisis and guess what?

In the 10 years since this has happened, not ONE of those men has been publicly recognised for that day. Not one of you on the Board of Directors at Qantas has, to this day recognised those men, the men that saved lives and saved your business from crisis and maybe even ruins.

You mention that you bring independence, accountability, and judgement to the Board’s deliberations to ensure maximum benefit to shareholders, customers, suppliers, and employees but what ‘maximum benefit’ did Sullivan, Lipsett, and Hales get? Nothing.

These men deserve Australia's highest civilian bravery award, The Cross of Valour (CV) and it shouldn't be up to myself and the 7,000 plus strong supporters we have at @Change.org to nominate these men, it should be YOU!

Now I want to explain to you the values of safety at Qantas, which I’m sure you are all aware of. The Qantas value is “safety - our first priority”, with the commitment to having a healthy, safe and secure environment for your people and customers, you call it “acting responsibly”.

On your website, you mention that every employee in the Qantas Group is a custodian of your reputation for excellence and integrity, with a responsibility to uphold the standards and values you represent.

You also make mention to collaborating and being open to learning from success and failures, you strive to prevent accidents, incidents, injuries, and illness and you encourage people to speak up if they have concerns about safety.

The last point you make is you are proud as a business that workplace safety is improving and as a business you have resilience. Let me quote your website.

“The ability to respond to risks and recover from impacts is the cornerstone of the Qantas Group’s business resilience framework. This framework is the primary response and recovery approach for the management of an event which has caused or has the potential to cause, an unacceptable level of risk or impact to any of the Group’s businesses”.

Now I’m sorry but when did Qantas show any ‘business resilience’ or ‘responsibility’ towards those three heroes on QF72. When exactly did you learn from this? If you learnt from it, you sure didn’t make any mention to anyone who was involved on that flight.

You as the Board of Directors have no reason to not publicly acknowledge Sullivan, Lipsett, and Hales, so why haven’t you? You have a CEO who has left my letters unanswered, yet, he finds the time to reply back to a 10-year-old boy who wishes to start up his own airline.

Mr. Alan Joyce then decides to preach to the boy about how ‘safety' is the company's top priority, but he doesn't recognise what Sullivan and his crew did. All I want to know is why? And how are you going to fix this?

Why is this too much to ask? Why can't you publicly acknowledge what these three men did? Captain Kevin Sullivan, First Officer Peter Lipsett, and Second Officer Ross Hales brought 315 passengers and crew back home safely to their loved ones.

They also exceeded the company’s high safety standards, thus ensuring maximum benefit to the company’s reputation for excellence and integrity.

These men are ‘THE REAL HEROES!’

You've given other deserving men from your team recognition in the past. Captain Richard de Crespigny comes to mind in the QF32 incident. On September 2011 he was recognised for acts of valor performed in his line of duty on November 4th, 2010, and was awarded the Qantas Chairman's Diamond Award. A very deserving recipient, but why aren't the three men of the QF72 incident not deserving? Please inform me of this.

So I ask the Board of Directors and CEO, Mr. Alan Joyce, to please act responsibly, and do the right thing!

Thank you for your time,

Fuzzy Maiava
QF72 Flight Attendant (Medically Ret.)