North Europe hit by volcanic ash

Greetings from Alaska home of over 130 volcanos. One goes off in a major way about once yearly snarling air traffic sometimes for weeks.

Believe me it is no fun and I really empathize with Northern Europeans on this one!

I'm also a pilot and fly a lot. Here is how it generally goes down:

After the big blow, nobody flys for a little less than a week. Then somebody will make a flight and not have problems and one by one airlines will get back in the air till another blow occurs or the wind shifts or both. Then everyone sits around watching the weather till something changes.

It isn't the end of the world. It just seems like it. The worst thing is to be trying to get somewhere and have to spend hours and days down at the air terminal with hundreds of other stranded people in exactly the same situation. Better have a good book!

Airplanes can fly but you need some time for the air to clear or for the wind to shift.

reply to post by smurfy


I have distinctly heard aircraft while outside, on two separate occasions.

Originally posted by 12voltz
reply to post by Regenstorm

 

I dont see how you can hoax a volcano,Thats a big job to pull off.The ash will still damage aircraft even light aircraft ,it gets in everywhere ,hinges ,bearings ,propellors,windscreens ,air vents etc .It would be like taking your plane to a sandblasting shop for a wash.

As I stated before, the volcano is real, but closing airspace 3000 miles away is ridiculous.
If I have to believe you, planes are not able to fly in areas where there is lots of sand in the air, like in a desert. Yet, jet planes, land and take off on sandy runways...

Originally posted by Kram09
reply to post by smurfy

 

I have distinctly heard aircraft while outside, on two separate occasions.

I don't know where you are, but there is no doubt some aircraft are flying at any level. There is no doubt about disinfo either, I heard a BBC science correspondent today, say quite clearly that the Ash would remain in the upper atmosphere, without a qualification, when it is equally clear that most of the Ash will fall to Earth at some stage.

I have just arrived back from London. Took a cab down to Dover and jumped on a ferry, hired a car in Calais and hit the road back to Luxembourg.

Queued up for about an hour at the car rental desk. Hundreds of people obviously doing the same thing. People were driving off to Spain, Denmark, Germany...hope they all get home safe, some had long drives in front of them.

Good business for the car rental industry!

Been a very couple of very sunny days here in Denmark. Very few clouds to be seen. And quiet... Which is unusual because there is a big nato exercise going on with several ships, in the seas outside my town. Normally I would hear several helicopters flying from the nato seaport here and also jets comming over the town. But not this time. They have all been grounded and the ships can't get their supplies which the helicopters flies out to the ships.
(source: Military Exercise bothered by ashcloud - nordjyske.dk)

And some volcano dust have been reported to fall down in a couple of places. But its not confirmed if it is from the eruption.
(source: A greeting from the volcano, or ...? - nordjyske.dk)

More sources: (about the planes that should have been in the air and I would have heard normally: Air Force participates in major naval exercise - forsvaret.dk )

[edit on 16-4-2010 by cadric]

[edit on 16-4-2010 by cadric]

Finally, I'm not the only one that thinks that this is a hoax!!!
Flyinggroup fights decision to ground all planes
Original article in Dutch:
www.gva.be...

[edit on 16-4-2010 by Regenstorm]

It does sound like some guy in a suit made the decision. If they are losing millions a day why not go back to good old science. Take a dummy plane and fly it around a safe zone and see what happens.

Planes can fly through deserts with no problem so what's the deal here.

Originally posted by Regenstorm

Originally posted by 12voltz
reply to post by Regenstorm

 

I dont see how you can hoax a volcano,Thats a big job to pull off.The ash will still damage aircraft even light aircraft ,it gets in everywhere ,hinges ,bearings ,propellors,windscreens ,air vents etc .It would be like taking your plane to a sandblasting shop for a wash.

As I stated before, the volcano is real, but closing airspace 3000 miles away is ridiculous.
If I have to believe you, planes are not able to fly in areas where there is lots of sand in the air, like in a desert. Yet, jet planes, land and take off on sandy runways...

You do have a point with the sand thing alright, maybe in this case it's the wrong kind of Ash.

[edit on 16-4-2010 by smurfy]

Originally posted by broli
It does sound like some guy in a suit made the decision. If they are losing millions a day why not go back to good old science. Take a dummy plane and fly it around a safe zone and see what happens.

Planes can fly through deserts with no problem so what's the deal here.

Broli.....

Brilliant.....10 ot of 10

And if it crashes it didn't work!

As some others have posted here, it seems odd that a plane can take off, fly and land in normal dust. But not the dust from a volcano. But in the link below it says that the dust pretty much destroyed the plane.

But this fine dust had almost blasted the entire aircraft and strangled motors.

Anyway this is a link about a plane that hit a volcanic as cloud 28 years ago.
That is why it went wrong 28 years ago

more info: puff.images.alaska.edu...



[edit on 16-4-2010 by cadric]

Originally posted by Maybe...maybe not

Originally posted by broli
It does sound like some guy in a suit made the decision. If they are losing millions a day why not go back to good old science. Take a dummy plane and fly it around a safe zone and see what happens.

Planes can fly through deserts with no problem so what's the deal here.

Broli.....

Brilliant.....10 ot of 10

And if it crashes it didn't work!

Maybe the trouble is that the eruption is seen as a "single act of god" in insurers parlance, so if there is any event, then noone will be compensated.

Wow this is crazy how far the ash has traveled, good luck to all those in it's path and to those in iceland. Thanks for keeping us updated on that part of the world.

Dust breaking engines is a hoax - truth is toxic air you cant breath.

Originally posted by JanusFIN
Dust breaking engines is a hoax - truth is toxic air you cant breath.

If the air is toxic, which I doubt, then you will have at least one go at breathing it. The BA Jumbo that lost all engines, is not considered a hoax.

Originally posted by cadric
As some others have posted here, it seems odd that a plane can take off, fly and land in normal dust. But not the dust from a volcano. But in the link below it says that the dust pretty much destroyed the plane.

But this fine dust had almost blasted the entire aircraft and strangled motors.

Anyway this is a link about a plane that hit a volcanic as cloud 28 years ago.
That is why it went wrong 28 years ago

more info: puff.images.alaska.edu...



[edit on 16-4-2010 by cadric]

I embedded this video a few pages back .

Google Video Link

Its the same incident as you linked .

The ash clouds choke the air intake of the engines . These turbo fan jets engines draw in a tremendous amount of air which is then compressed , mixed with fuel and ignited.
The temperatures in the combustion chamber are far higher than the melting point of volcanic ash , this molten substance penetrates deep into the engine. In some places it cools and attaches itself to the engine effectively choking it.
Lots of fuel ... too little oxygen = engine flame out and eventual failure .

This particular plane lost all four engines ....... it also held the record for one of the longest glides ever accomplished by a plane of its size .

Volcanic isn`t good for humans to breath ..... but it ain`t good for planes to breath it in either .

reply to post by JanusFIN


Well actually it is not, as evidenced by BA Flight 9 , but I suspect that incident has been mentioned many times so far. Quite right too as the incident is why the authorities who oversee air travel take volcano activity seriously.

Regards



[edit on 16/4/2010 by paraphi]

Just had a few minutes look around and found these.


In June 1982, a British Airways Boeing 747 jumbo jet flight from Heathrow to Auckland flew into a cloud of volcanic ash caused by the eruption of Mount Galunggung in Java, Indonesia.

At first the crew were unaware of the exact nature of the problem but within minutes all four engines had failed. With cockpit windscreen visibility seriously reduced, the plane managed to glide far enough out of the ash cloud for three of the four engines to restart.

Although the airspace around Mount Galunggung was closed temporarily after the incident, it was re-opened days later. It was only after a Singapore Airlines 747 was forced to shut down three of its engines while flying through the same area nineteen days later (13 July), that Indonesian authorities closed the airspace permanently and re-routed airways to avoid the area, and a watch was set up to monitor clouds of ash. This was not, in fact, the first encounter from this eruption; a Garuda DC-9 encountered ash on 5 April 1982.


More than 20 aircraft were damaged by the ash cloud from the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The cloud travelled more than 5,000 miles to the east coast of Africa.

so yes it is a problem for planes.

Originally posted by broli
It does sound like some guy in a suit made the decision. If they are losing millions a day why not go back to good old science. Take a dummy plane and fly it around a safe zone and see what happens.

Planes can fly through deserts with no problem so what's the deal here.

It isn't the dust, it is what is in the dust. Flying directly into a plume or in the close vicinity of a plume draws up the ash into the engine, where it mixes with moisture and turns to cement!

Also and this is the case that applies here. Alot of silica is present in Volcanic ash and remains long after the plume has dispersed or moved on. Silica gets into the plane engines, melts, clogging up the filtration systems and shuts the engines down. with the speed that planes fly at it also sandblasts the windscreen so that pilots can't see.
Silica is invisible to the naked eye.

There is a big difference in desert sand, dust and then volcanic ash at high altitudes!

One plane crash is one too many and any avoidable loss of life is a crime.

reply to post by Aelfrede


I wonder why the Airports were shut down so soon... the cloud of Ash hasn't even reached parts of Britain yet Airports have closed which are situated down South! Surely flights could have still taken off to destinations South, South West, South East, East & West...