Distortions, distortions....
Pace, I suggest you re-read the report.
The flight was a positioning flight to allow the aircraft to conduct SOLVE missions (ozone loss and validation) within the Artic zone north of Sweden. So nothing odd there - just like my red eye to London or Amsterdam it is difficult to fly to Europe from the USA without hitting night at some point.
The fact they were running the instrumentation was standard practice.
The flight path of for the flight had been conservatively adjusted to put the track 200 miles North of the predicted ash cloud.
Immediately on landing the engine oil, oil filters and heat exchanger filters were removed and saved for analysis. Visual inspection did NOT reveal and damage, and since borescope inspection equipment was NOT available at the deployment airfield, and there was no apparent change in engine performance, the research flights continued.
There were seven SOLVE research flights and the report notes that ash was detected as traces during these, but at MUCH MORE DIFFUSE levels than in the first encounter - remember this is an instrumented aircraft, so they RECORD all this... there is no question where or not they flew through "a later dense ash encounter" - that is fantasy on your part.
As for your assessment that this is not a scientific study - well I leave that up to the reader to decide. I have yet to see any reports from any of the sampling flights over Europe that decided everything was suddenly perfectly safe.
My point - well, it seemed there was a lot of conjecture on the evidence that ash damages things or not. Here's evidence it does. The report includes measurements taken during the encounter of the sulfur dioxide concentration in parts per trillion by volume amongst other data, and it is clear when the encounter started and ended. The report also includes clear pictures of the disassembled engine parts.
My intent was to educate, not advocate - I'm not saying don't fly, neither am I suggesting fly.
Personally I have no intent of getting on an aircraft when I am aware there is a big cloud of ash floating in and around my flight path. My choice. Since most of my flights are for business and can be adjusted, I don't feel inclined to exposes myself to undue risk. I realize others do not have that luxury.
If you could let me know the next time a large flock of Canada Geese are in my flight path, then I will choose not to get on that aircraft also... for me it's all about risk management.
Oh, and let's see if there is a spike in engine maintenance over the next 6 months. Time to look at GE, PW and RR stocks.
- GY