Zooker
fog and crap vis are quantifiable but still manage to kill people
CB are quantifiable but still kill people
hail windshear blah blah all manage to kill people.
The problem here is that the events being used to justify this closure, the BA 747 and the DC8, both happened at night and if you read the reports the crew believed they were in or under cirrus cloud. They could see no stars, no moon no nothing. It was night and they flew into clouds of volcanic ash that they would have otherwise avoided.
I would like just one single case of engine damage to be cited that relates to a clear air daytime good VMC event and volcanic ash. I have spent a lot of time asking a lot of questions and as far as I know, not one event relates to daytime and good VMC.
Dear CAA. Please tell me what basis your "airborne cloud may not be visible" statement is based on. Please tell me what events you are using to justify destroying the european aviation industry.
Dear engine manufacturers. Please supply me with proper information regarding particulate concentrations. Please provide me with cases of aircraft flying in 50k visibility having their engines stop because of clogging and abrasion.
Greece has just agreed a rescue plan with the euro nations. This agreement will be in tatters in the next few days because their economy is almost totally reliant on tourism. That stuffs the euro and destroys the extremely fragile recovery that exists in Europe at the moment. Every airline was feeling the pain before this happened. Many are now facing the slippery slope to bancrupcy. I realise that NATS and the CAA don't really care about this because they will trumpet "SAFETY" and that will justify everything because, god forbid flying might have some risk attached.
This is an extremely well intentioned but mind bogglingly badly executed decision. There have been ways to fly safely in these conditions and they were not offered or discussed. The research information has existed for years on this because until very recently a no-fly zone of this size around an eruption was unheard of. That means that airliners have already done millions of hours of flying with these so called deadly particulates being sucked up and spat out the back with no problem. Certainly not one that makes them fall from the sky. They have only shut this all down because now the satellites carry TOMS and other much more sophisticated IR spectrum devices that can see it. They didnt have it a few years ago and it wasn't raining aluminium.
Talk to the operators while they can still trade. Get us flying again while there is still an industry. Let us fly in the day in VMC and just get a grip on what real risk management is all about. Your next decision will be to ground everything forever and never allow anything to fly because that way you can absolutely guarantee there will be no crashes...