Ash clouds threaten air traffic

[DangerousDriver]

Seems to have almost completely stopped now:

Eyjafjallajökull frá Valahnúk

[Airbus Girl]

I am no coward but I am not foolhardy either. Flying airliners involves making decisions that err on the side of safety. You always go for the safest option. If that means we sit on the ground for a few more days until more solid information is available then so be it.

When the engine and aircraft manufacturers say it is safe to fly their products in the conditions, then and only then will I consider getting into the air.

However I suspect aircraft will be grounded by airline's insurance companies. Until insurance companies give the OK, which airline is going to risk flying? A hull loss that isn't insured could bring an airline down.

For those who are so eager to jump in an airliner and go flying, and claim there is no problem with that as there have only over been the 2 publicised incidents, may I suggest you have a look at this information from Boeing:-
Aero 09 - Volcanic Ash Avoidance

[Clandestino]

Originally Posted by Peter We

Well they will have to charge nn times as much as previously to cover the overhaul and inspection costs on a vastly reduced schedule. This might doom the airlines in question with months if it wrecks the fleet.

Nevermind the pure economics, Sunfish made a very good point that we (we as the world) will be absolutely unable to produce enough spare engine parts to meet the demand created by shortening the engines' life span. No amount of money thrown on the problem will solve that.

So much for the society that got so obsessed with efficiency, streamlining and trimming that having spare capacity or plan B is considered to be unnecessary luxury.

[Wod]

Astonomy Picture Of The Day today. Gives a concise account of what has gone on. (Great site anyway for those not aware of it)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

[Twitcher]

extended...

Statement on Icelandic volcanic eruption: Monday April 19, 0830
Based on the latest information from the Met Office, NATS advises that the current restrictions across UK controlled airspace due to the volcanic ash cloud will remain in place until at least 0100 (local) on Tuesday 20th April.

[Icarus]

Message from IATA

Re-Think of Volcano Measures
Governments Must Base Decisions on Fact Not Theory

Paris - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) sharply criticized European governments for their lack of leadership in handling airspace restrictions in light of the Icelandic volcano eruption and urged a re-think of the decision-making process.
“We are far enough into this crisis to express our dissatisfaction on how governments have managed it - with no risk assessment, no consultation, no coordination, and no leadership. This crisis is costing airlines at least $200 million a day in lost revenues and the European economy is suffering billions of dollars in lost business. In the face of such dire economic consequences, it is incredible that Europe’s transport ministers have taken five days to organize a teleconference,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.
“Governments must place greater urgency and focus on how and when we can safely re-open Europe’s skies. This means decisions based on risk-management, facts and utilizing operational procedures that maintain safety,” said Bisignani.
IATA criticized Europe’s unique methodology of closing airspace based on theoretical modeling of the ash cloud. “This means that governments have not taken their responsibility to make clear decisions based on facts. Instead, it has been the air navigation service providers who announced that they would not provide service. And these decisions have been taken without adequately consulting the airlines. This is not an acceptable system particularly when the consequences for safety and the economy are so large,” said Bisignani.
“Safety is our top priority. Airlines will not fly if it is not safe. I have consulted our member airlines that normally operate in the affected airspace. They report missed opportunities to fly safely. The European system results in blanket closures of airspace. I challenge governments to agree on ways to flexibly re-open airspace. Risk assessments should be able to help us re-open certain corridors, if not entire airspaces,” said Bisignani.
To assist governments in assessing risk, airlines have conducted successful test flights in several European countries. The results have not shown any irregularities or safety issues. Airlines are also exploring various operational measures to maintain safe operations. These include day flights, restrictions to specific flight corridors, special climb and descent procedures, and more frequent detailed boroscopic engine inspections to detect damage.
The scale of airspace closures currently seen in Europe is unprecedented. “We have seen volcanic activity in many parts of the world but rarely has it resulted in airspace closures - and never at this scale. When Mount St. Helens erupted in the US in 1980, we did not see large scale disruptions, because the decisions to open or close airspace were risk managed with no compromise on safety,” said Bisignani, who urged Eurocontrol to establish a volcano contingency centre capable of making coordinated decisions.
Bisignani called for an urgent meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the specialized agency of the UN, to define government responsibility for the decisions to open or close airspace in a coordinated and effective way based on real data and special operating procedures.

[Unixman]

Interesting -and timely - article in New Scientist at the moment concerning the supervolcano Toba that exploded about 75k years ago.

What is relevant is that they give the amounts of magma ejected by more recent eruptions (all values in cubic km)

Mount St Helens (1980) 0.5
Mount Pinatubu (1991) 5
Krakatoa (1883) 12

(as an aside Toba was 2500 !!)

There are of course big differences - the eruptions above were explosive and dumped all their magma into the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time rather than a continual stream - but it gives an idea of scale.

[silverstrata]

My question that I haven't really heard is this: the ash is mostly at quite high altitude, right? Couldn't the airlines therefore simply fly beneath it? I do realise that because of the increased density at lower FLs this would require greater fuel to generate greater thrust to overcome resistance, and would therefore be more expensive... but would it be prohibitive? Would the ATCs be set up to deal with this?

Hello, media man/woman. Times? Telegraph? ITN? In answer, yes we could, if allowed to. However:

There appears to be ash traces down to quite low levels (7000').
If you fly a large jet low level it burns much more fuel.
If you are flying low level you might drop out of controlled airspace, and start mixing it with light aircraft and gliders.

[Masai]

Exactly Aslak

Aslak, You are right.
We now have Health and Safety at its ultimate - Stop All Activity.
The judgment of those in charge is seriously questionable if only because they have never seen this situation before.
Safe operation is about managing risk, not avoiding it altogether.

[Al Fakhem]

Peter We:

If it is an "engineer-business" decision, then why not leave the decision to those directly affected, i.e. the airlines?

But to put your idea in a more logical wrapping: if you have to make decisions, you need data - statistically reasonably sound data. I repeat: there has been no concerted effort by the EU to collect and evaluate such data. Instead, the authorities are flying blind without instruments.

[AEST]

Al Fakhem,

They're not flying blind, they just use different instruments than us. See above

[Digitalis]

The problem here is that there is no quantified scale of risk and response associated with volcanic events. We have an ever-improving ability to monitor and detect atmospheric anomalies such as volcanic residue, but we don't have a recognised methodology for determining a factored 'safe' suspension of contaminants in the atmosphere. At the moment, because we have ancient and now demonstrably inadequate rules, the mantra is 'any volcanic dust, don't fly'. But that rule was instigated at a time when our only reliable way of detecting such residue was visual - so, if it could be seen, it was relatively simple and not too disruptive to apply a defined 'avoid' area, which included a buffer zone 'just in case'. That worked fine, and the many hundreds of volcanic eruptions where that rule has been applied and followed have not caused us more than temporary inconvenience.

Now we have a situation where we can not only see far more of the stuff, but we can use very powerful computers to estimate, extrapolate and give 'worst case' projections - to which we then apply the 'any dust, don't fly' rule. As we are beginning to realise, the regulatory tools just aren't up to the job. In tandem with our improved detection and prediction techniques, we need - and very quickly - a comprehensive analysis of what is safe, what is 'safe enough (but possibly expensive in engineering terms)', what is marginal, and what is a definite 'no go'.

Without that comprehensively revised regulatory matrix, we are stuck with VAACs saying 'there's potentially dust EVERYWHERE', rules that say 'you can't fly', and politicians unwilling to put their careers on the line to make some kind of pragmatic decision. In the meantime, economies, airlines, importers and exporters, and many millions of peoples occupations, go to the wall.

Safety is not an static absolute. It is always a dynamic compromise. It's time a few politicians woke up to that.

[anengineer]

...and how predictable - the safety of people in the air is now being put under pressure by financial forces as the ban extends again. I appreciate how desperate the situation is, but you cannot, and must not allow aircraft full of people to fly through volcanic ash - no matter how much danger the airlines are in of financial ruin, regardless of how many days your family have been stuck in Mallorca. Everyone is desperate to get the planes in the air again, but some are advocating playing games with peoples' lives in order to get there.

It doesn't matter if the airlines do go bust, it doesn't matter if you end up having to cycle back from Turin - as undesirable as both scenarios are, they are infinitely preferable to the possibility of a single airliner dropping out of the sky with engine failure. Not just for the obvious loss of life reason, but also for the defence of the principle of 'safety first'. If we allow a fudge that permits an "acceptable level of risk" under commercial, governmental and popular pressure, - that sets a precedent that when the **** hits the fan (no pun intended !), it's ok to start bending the rules - and this is one industry where that cannot be permitted - under any circumstances. History is littered with disasters caused by safety being impinged by commercial pressures, and it's concerning me greatly that we could be watching another one unfold before us now.

The bottom line here is that almost everyone calling for the ban to be lifted isn't qualified to make the scientific and engineering judgements on what is safe and what isn't. They are arguing their corner from a commercial / financial or personal perspective - and that includes most people on here too.

[inducedrag]

For initial time make the air space non RVSM and more spacing between landings

[Re-Heat]

When Mt Redoubt erupted in 1989/90, we continued operating into Anchorage (daylight only), visually avoiding the plume. This often meant a longer route in, due to the closeness of Mt Redoubt to Anchorage.

If there are any engineers who were around at the time then perhaps they could comment as to whether there was any damage to the aircraft during these times.

The KLM 744 for starters...

[BDiONU]

I've just read the report from the Dornier 228 flight DCALM (possibly the only scientific flight thats been made, the BA and KLM political stunt flying doesn't count) and they had a definite bum sucking up seat cloth moment at 5000 feet 52.75N 002.38E.

We're still currently operating in an information vacuum as to what's really out there.

BD
P.S. I don't intend posting that report up here on a public website as, to quote the author, "I'm sure you'll be aware that this was written for internal use, so is a little rough around the edges, but it seems most appropriate to simply release you the unamended document.
This is regarded as being in the public domain, although given it's not really designed for public consumption so I'd appreciate it if it was kept between aviation or scientific professionals."

[falco01]

Lithuanian airspace is open (Vilnus FIR), and Riga FIR above FL200 is open from today (06:00 UTC, if I remember correctly).

I still don't feel coordinated approach....are the CAAs and ministries communicating well enough among each other? Or just looking up to the EU politicians and whatever Eurocontrol will come up with (or NATS, at worst)?

[Airclues]

Re-Heat

KLM flew into a clearly visible ash plume, thinking that it was a cloud. No engines will survive that.

Dave

[fflyingdog]

Why no word from the likes of GE,RR,Pratt amongst others as to their view on things? Have BA,KLM,Lufthansa done their engine boroscopes? and if so what were the results? I expect that when we eventually get flying again to start having problems with various pneumatic components,i remember when we were kids at the beach, no matter how carefull you were, you still ended up with sand in your sarnies.

[no sig]

So, we decide to fly again with volcanic ash in the atmosphere across our route- how is this going to work?

1. The Met Office/VAAC will continue to publish their best assessment of path and area affected by volvanic ash, as is their duty; it will be depicted on SIGWX charts, NOTAMS and in other pre-flight planning information.

2. Our Ops Manuals and Airplane & Engine OEM's advise that we must avoid flight into 'known' areas of volcanic ash. Commander's then have the dilema of deciding how to operate their flights in the face of a known hazard to flight. Will there be a derogation issued by our airlines and respective NAA's that pilot's can fly into 'known' areas of volcanic ash?

3. As a sound precautionary principle, after we do start flying en-mass, we will, at least for a period of time, require a check of each aircraft & engines inaccordance with the engine manufacturers procedures. This will be disruptive enough, as a previous engineering posts highlighted its not that straight forward. I don' think the few test flights that have been conducted are sufficient to say this isn't required.

What about engine/airframe warranty issues?

4. How will the leasing companies react to companies flying their aircraft into areas of known volcanic ash, and what agreements will be required to defer risk from the lessor to the lessee? Return conditions are the airlines responsibility I know, but I would think consultation is required.

5. Insurance? some agreement will presumably be required with our insurers on the above. If the airlines do accept the risk do they have sufficient capital in their business to do that for a large fleet of airplanes?

6. NATS/Eurocontrol?, a derogation will be required to permit IFR clearances to be issued into areas of know Volcanic ash.

7. And as EU operators how is this going to coordinated across Europe and a common approach established?

And I am sure there are many other issues I can't think of right now that are going to conspire against us in the coming days. Is there anyone out there that can tell us what's happening in the airlines, insurance, leasing companies and regulatory bodies regard to the above.