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Old 13th Jun 2011, 14:03
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Wing Root
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Australia
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NASA's Unexpected Volcanic Ash Encounter Flight
Ten years ago, a NASA DC-8 unintentionally flew through a diffuse ash cloud generated by Hekla, a volcano in Iceland, and upon first inspection showed no damage -- key words "unintentionally" and "upon first inspection." What the event showed is that the most up-to-date information on ash cloud location could be misinterpreted and significant damage could be incurred in spite of a vigilant, well-briefed flight crew. What's more, that damage can be very expensive and hard to detect. Then NASA propulsion engineer Tom Grindle worked the case and co-authored a paper on his findings.
For those keen to see the airlines HTFU on this I think the above story will go some way to explaining why it's simply not worth the risk.
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