Pace, you really do have a point. If the end of the world was nigh and volcanoes were active all over the place, you can be very sure we would all be flying around in whatever came out of them because that would be the only way an acceptable level of operations could continue. Regulations would be tightened up and the risk mitigated as much as possible. All the phenomena you mention are just like that - too widespread and frequent for simple avoidance to be a realistic option. Personally I don't think ash falls into this category but:
If I thought that what we had just done was exactly that - carefully worked out the real risk and the likely result of an increase in exposure both in the shorter and longer term, then I feel none of us could really take issue with it. That is just what has happened with so many other threats. But the difference here is through a misjudgement by the industry we never bothered to look into it in any great detail. Suddenly we were caught out and the pressure was on for a quick decision.
My only question to you would be how can you be happy with the way the new procedures were created? 2 days is an absolutely incredibly short time for so many sections of the industry to come up with an answer. And in particular how can you be happy with it in the light of the fact that test flights, military flights and civilian flights, have appeared to have continued to suffer problems that the new regulations said would not occur?
Genuinely, I would like to know what you think. Maybe you have some other nugget that might make me see this whole thing differently....
Last edited by captainpaddy; 27th Apr 2010 at 09:27.