Volcanic Ash - what have you found
 

A lot of us will have been involved in volcanic ash inspections / maintenance and working day to day on operational aircraft. What have you seen or found relating to this?

For me, I have not found anything yet or had feedback of high silicon content in any of oil samples taken or oil filters changed. I have heard from friends at other opertors of dust found in stagnant air positions and high silicon count in oil.

Would be interested in hear what other people are finding, if anything.

And what about sulphur content in oil? High sulphur dioxide levels are usually found alongside VA in the air. And ash particles in (heat-exchanger, ...) filters?
Are you checking these? (see NASA DC-8 Ash incident report - apparently sulphur tests are / were not usually done on engine oil....)

Nothing found yet.

Me too, not a dicky bird.... oops sorry no pun intended. :ok:

I've also found absolutely nothing through dozens of inspections. Has anyone actually found ash deposits?!

Who is deeming that flight through 'volcanic ash' is unsafe? Has anyone got limits from engine/airframe manufacturers stating how many parts per million of ash will cause damage to their components? My knowledge of it is that even if ash was encountered in low concentrations it would only cause greater wear on engines and abrade windows/airframe structure, not cause the aircraft to plummet earthward. Shouldn't this be a cost decision on the part of the airlines, not the Met Office?!

see http://www.pprune.org/engineers-tech...detection.html.

Maybe there IS evidence but not where people are looking!

errrr....
Don't forget the potential impact of ash accumulation in the turbine hot-section cooling channels. More to do with overheating than just 'wear'!

Are filters (oil filters from engines, air filters from engines and other parts of the a/c, ...) being sent for chemical / microscopic analysis?

Yes at least at my airline.

My question still stands; Has anybody actually found evidence? In fact, in the past month have we engineers found any evidence that volcanic ash could have come close to bringing an aircraft down? Remember, the safest way to operate aircraft is never to actually fly them!