From or what your school was like, but it was about ukraine, politics, believes on education and religion. After that moment i was like wow, this week is going to be intense. But it has been very cool to see the evolution of our bonds and friendships. From just talking about politics, our experiences and what we have learned, who we have met, this is an experience i will never forget. Been cynicalays about it. That politics is a caustic environment. Slowly, throughout the week, different people have chipped away at that opinion. That has been so ingrained in my head and i thought maybe i do want to make a difference and run for something local. Like the president said yesterday, he told us not to get cynical because the nation does not need more cynical people. It will not help us to relieve the problems we have. One of the things that gets brought up by this generation is social media. We are able to express our opinions very easily. We can send a tweet about what we think. I think that that starts the conversation, we like to talk a conversation in the social media and we like to get our opinions out there. This whole week has been about learning. I come from a small town that is very politically homogenic. There is not much chance for people who do not think the same to get their opinions out without being with ridiculed. Being here has given me the opportunity to learn other viewpoints and get my ideas out of the fear of being shunned. High School Students from across the country discuss their participation in the u. S. Senate youth program, a Weeklong Program held annually in washington, tonight at 8 00 on q a. The outgoing chair of the National Transportation safety board spoke recently at the National Press club in washington, d. C. Term this past week and will be taking up a new post as president and ceo of the National Safety council. Her remarks were about good one hour. Good morning and welcome. I am an adjunct professor, former International Bureau chief for the Associated Press than 107th president of the National Press club. We are the World Leading Professional Organization for journalists committed to the professions future through programming and events such as this. For more information about the National Press club, please visit the website. I would like to welcome my speaker and those attending the event. If you hear applause, not necessarily an National Evidence of lack of a journal observance objectivity. You can follow the action on twitter. After the guests beach concludes, we will have a question and answer time that what i discuss many questions as time permits. Time to introduce the head table guests. I would like each of you to stand briefly. From your right, aviation week editor in chief. John boyd, editor of the new seat to cq. Bill cassidy. Alan levin, Bloomberg News aviation reporter and guest per speaker. John well am a senior account executive at edelman. The National Transportation safety Board Director of Public Affairs and guest of our speaker. Chairman of the beaker committee and past president of the National Press club. Its giving over the speaker, angela riley playing, Bloomberg News white house correspondent, Speaker Committee member who helped organize todays event at National Press club resident. Thank you. Jim brown, airplane crash survivor and guest of the speaker. Jeff plunges, Bloomberg News transportation reporter. Bonnie rollins, recently retired and and gave nelson, automotive news, washington correspondent. [applause] 10 years since president george w. Bush appointed Deborah Hershman to the National Transportation safety board she has used her bully pulpit to highlight a long list of Transportation Safety issues. Motorcycle buses motorcoach buses, motorcycle riders, Regional Airlines, Truck Drivers texting and otherwise distract the drivers. Even boeing have found themselves in their crosshairs her crosshairs. She even holds a commercial drivers license to better understand the industry she investigates. Her agency is responsible for investigating transportation crashes and accidents and determining causes also issues determinations on safety. During her perm term the board put distracted driving into the lexicon and reformed Regional Airline safety following a devastating crash in buffalo. As she wraps up come them mrs. Hershman trying to figure out how to safely transport oil by rail. She will leave the board leave the board to become ceo of the National Safety council in should gnash suburban chicago. She said she will continue her focus on Transportation Safety. Even with a broader focus. Looking at the deadliest accident into his street of new york metro north railroad. Early in her career, the West Virginia native worked on the staff of the Senate Commerce committee. Here to get there well for marxist chairman of the National Transportation safety board, please help me give a warm National Press club welcome to Deborah Hershman. [applause] thank you for the gracious introduction and thank you to the busy people who had made time out of their day to be with me today. Thank you for the introduction and invitation to come back to the National Press club. Does anyone remember the reliable source before it was remodeled in the 1990s fiasco little brass plates that had quotes on them that were all over the walls. Perhaps some of you that our reporters might still have those brass weights. A lot of them had quotes on them about the independent press as a check on government. A government where i have spent most of my working career. But i have spent much of it at the National Transportation safety board are independence is critical. Do we investigate, report and go where the facts lead us . Yes. Is that something similar to what you and the press to do . I think it is. Your primary responsibility is to inform the public. Our primary responsibility is to investigate to reduce future. Risk. So when do we intersect . When. Risk becomes news. That is what i would like to talk about. I would like to talk about risk, especially unlikely risk and when they become news. So let the start with a story about a secluded village high on a mountaintop in a prosperous kingdom where life is treasured. The only way to visit the secluded village was to be hoisted up in a rope drawn basket, accompanied by a village elder. One day a visitor notices as he is approaching the basket that the rope is badly frayed. He rationalizes that surely such a place would never put at risk their own elders and visitors. Once the basket is off the ground, the wind starts to pick up come at the basket is swaying and sure the rope has a little too much give to it. He rationalizes that they must find a extra special rope that has a lot of give because of the windy conditions near the village. Finally, halfway up the rope is squeaking and groaning, and feels like he has to say something. So he turns to the village elder in the basket next to him and says, how often do they rip laced the rope . The village elders thanks for a moment, and he says, whenever it breaks i guess. So, do you think that is Good Governance . Or perhaps more relevant for the audience here today, when the rope breaks, would you write a story about it . I can see your headlines now, beware on the village of death. Lets make the question of little bit harder. Maybe rope is very expensive and 10,000 passengers make the trek in the passenger before the rope breaks. Now should you wait until the rope rakes . Breaks . What if they break cost as much a solid gold . Should you wait until it breaks . We can add all sorts of different variables, but what if you or someone you love is the 10,000 visitor . Or what if you write the story of the 10,000 visitor. Of the 10,000 visitor. Then that stranger becomes someone we all know and the trouble is by that time the rope has already broken. Let me tell you what happens when the rope breaks and real life. 25 years ago the ntsb investigated the crash landing in sioux city of the United Airlines dc10, flight 232. The crew of the airplane did an amazing job in a nowin situation. If anyone here in the room is a star trek fan, and this is the kobayashi marrufo of the dc10 simulators. The flight took off from denver, bound for chicago. On the way, the tail mounted engine exploded, severing the hydraulics. Although the plane had to wing mounted engines that were still operable, the crew had no control over the very essential control services of the airplane. Crewmembers shuttled back to visually inspect the tail and wings, while others tried to access the control surfaces to no avail. They kept the plane flying using the difference interest between the engines. The cap didnt realize they would have to perform a crash landing and informed the crew. The crew had the task of preparing passengers on the flight for that landing. There was no way to prepare the littlest passengers. There were children under two on board, and they were permitted to sit on their parents lap. So as the passengers and cabin 000000000000000crew waited for the brace signal, a senior Flight Attendant picked up the microphone and reminded the parents to buffer their babies by wrapping them in towels and blankets and placing them on the floor, embracing them with their hands and legs. That is exactly what to mothers day. Two mothers did. The final approach speed was over 240 miles per hour. The rightwing caught on the runway. The plane broke into three pieces, caught on fire and ended up in a cornfield. Fast crew that crew could not control the landing. Nobody could. Those mothers could not hold onto their babies. Nobody could. Amazingly, 100 and 85 people survived that crash, but tragically 111 people lost their lives. In the aftermath of the crash in the burning fuselage, lori and Mark Eccleston could not find their 11monthold daughter, sabrina. They had to make a choice that no parent should have to make. Whether to escort therefore and sixyearold sons out of the burning aircraft to safety or tuesday and look for sabrina. In the thick smoke, they made the chase ashtrays to get them out safely. Mark ran back for sabrina. He heard her cry but only once. Sylvia and now tries to return to the plaintive look for her son evan. The senior Flight Attendant blocked her path and told her she could not return to the burning aircraft. She said helpers would find the baby. Sylvia looked at the Flight Attendant and said, you told me to put my baby on the floor, and i did, and now he is gone. Ever since then, that senior Flight Attendant has been on a crusade to ban lap held children on flights. Are transcends statistics and facts. It has to do with how our brains are wired. I would like to ask you to think back. For the journalist in the room, i want you to think back to an interaction with your first editor that has really stuck with you. For the rest of us, think back to your first boss. Think back to it interaction you really remember. Ok. You got that memory. I would like to see a show of hands. How many of the memories were good memories. How many of the memories were bad memories . Neutral. I saw a lot of hands go up for bad. Only one for good. I think that really helps to prove a point. That has to do with how we remember things. The amygdala influences the coding of episodic memory or in laymans terms, that memory stick. Think about it, some actors will not read their own reviews because if nine out of 10 things say good things about them, what are they going to remember . Table remember the 10th that said something bad about them. That is why companies spend a lot of money tried to help employees through change because there are a lot of people who say we tried Something Different 20 years ago and did not work. We have evolved that way to survive. If you are a caveman and sabertooth tiger eats your friend a mile away from the case, it is really important to not go to that place a mile east of the cave. We learn by seeing. So when you raised your hand before in response to my question, a set of motor neurons fired. The neurons tell the muscles what to do. When you lowered it, another set of motor neurons fired. Something else happened just now when you watch me raise my hand, some of your motor neurons fired again as if you had raised your hand. These are called mirror neurons and they are key to learning and teaching. If you are teaching your child to tie their shoelaces, you do at first, you show them how to do it, and then they copy you. Think how much it easier that is then for a child to have to learn to try and not all by themselves in a new way. So, this is very home full and human survivability. It is another reason why we have survived. When i scratch my hands, sensory neurons fire in your brain. For some, just because you were watching me. The only reason you do not feel it in your hand is because you have a combination of sensory and mirror neurons. If you numb your hands so there is no feedback, you would feel your hand being scratched. The spanish phrase for i am sorry is lo siento. Im sorry. It is about human beings at their core when we see suffering or hear about suffering, we feel it. At some level we might override it. We have a mix of mirror and normal neurons to do just that. Were hardwired for empathy. If you want more on mirror neurons check out the head talks on it. I have borrowed from him shamelessly. What do them neurons have to do with replacing the ropes . We know bad things stick with people. We know we empathize. So we have to replace the rope. We know there are some risks we cannot personally control. That means sometime we have to cooperate to replace the rope. Fortunately we are wired to do just that. We form society to teach each other where the predators live. The band together against enemy tribes. We teach each other where to find food so we do not starve. This contrast is the theories of social darwinism am in the idea some people are weeded out and the few that remain get all of the goodies. Nobody wants the rope to break, so the other safer villages get more visitors so the visitors to the secluded mountaintop die, and the village is cut off from the kingdom and withers away. Because the person in the basket could be you or someone you love. In fact, part of your brain may think it is. So you demand they replaced the rope. 25 years ago united flight 232 crashed in sioux city. Last year flight 214 crashed in san francisco. With more than 300 people aboard the flight. The plane that struck a seawall short of the runway. It ended up thousands of feet down the runway. Only three people died. Not 111. In part because of the crash is being very different. In part because a lot has improved with safety since 1989. These were the first three fatalities in the United States and more than four years for commercial aviation. 99 of the passengers on flight 200 14 survived. I know you have all seen footage of it. It was a catastrophic crash. Do you think that statistic comforts families of the three people who were lost . For them, this crash was the ultimate tragedy. This summer the ntsb expects to issue a final report on the crash in the hopes of preventing the tragedies. The next life lost could be yours, could be mined or any of ours. Could be mine. I begin telling you about two mothers. A cannot hold their babies in place in 1989. There is more to the michelson story because there was another passenger there whose name was jerry semel. He heard sabrinas cries and felt around and in the overhead bin which at this time was on the floor. He felt around until he could grab the leg, and then pulled her out into his arms. Eventually he got outside and reunited her with the michelsons. Later they were able to thank Jerry Schimmel for doing the right thing. For doing what his human empathy impelled compelled him to do, for acting in a selfless way. Like so many heroes, when he was interviewed, he said i am not a hero because you would have done the same thing. But there was no hero for evan tsao. There is someone who is never forgotten that. The senior Flight Attendant that day was jan brown. I am honored to share the stage with jan today and that she came from chicago to join us. Within a month of arriving at the ntsb as a new board member, i got a call from janet imploring me not to remove the issue of child passenger the in aviation off of the most wanted list. She always mentions and then every time she talks about this issue. Saying this year as an would have been 16 and maybe giving getting his drivers license. This year evan would have been 18. Maybe leaving home for college for the first time. This year evan would have been 27, and maybe circumstances would have been different, a reporter covering another speaker here today. That is why we protect above against tail events and wide p all want to write and read and watch the story of tail events because we are wired to do it. It would have been us. Because making sure karen that the rope gets replaced. And we know it is the right thing to do. We would not accept cars without seatbelts today. We would not accept airliners without evacuation slides. Yesterdays tragic lessons are todays safety wishlist. Today to