I suspect there is still the 4 day a week management culture operating (there was apparently one at Land Rover until the new Indian owners shook things)...... only relatively junior staff were present and the SO's weren't so much hiding as away in Paris, or Madrid, or their Cotswold retreat or on a boat at Cowes..... I suspect the Monaco Grand Prix was also a spot you'd find some.......... and of ocurse they couldn't get back from overseas because...........
You can talk all you like about managing a fast moving crisis by modern comms but it doesn't work - you need the movers and shakers around a table and not sitting on the end of a dodgy phone connection waiting for a chance to butt in to a conference call..............