aviate1138 - that's absolutely ridiculous - commercial pilots operate to their company's standard operating procedures - the idea that you let every one of them make a different decision just beggars belief!
The authorities are between a rock & a hard place on this one - if they allowed flights to continue and a large jet, full of passengers fell out of the sky then the lawyers would have a field day (and rightly so!), I can't see how anyone can object to them taking a precautionary approach to this.