New eruption starting in Iceland? (merged)

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I am sorry but a few thimblefuls in an area the size of a four bedroom house won't do it.

Pace, that's rather a bold, but unqualified, statement. Prove it. Please.

As a pilot I am interested in what density of ash can bring my aircraft down.

Yet, so far, nobody knows. What are you going to do? Keep flying until you do have an IFSD due to ash then report back to us? How many passengers lives are you going to risk while you do this?

[Pace]

But neither have the so called qualified hence the anger from the airlines who are also not qualified to make their angry statements.
Personally I would worry more about bird strikes and CBS than and I stress INVISABLE ash.

Pace

[anotherthing]

As a pilot I am interested in what density of ash can bring my aircraft down.

So why don't you ask your employer to speak to the engine manufacturer?

Until they make a decision, then you will not be flying in High density areas. They have stated that the promulgated medium and low density areas are fine for aircraft operation. Air Worthiness had nothing to do with the Met Office. Air Worthiness certification from CAA needs assurances from engine and airframe manufacturers (as it does in any ther aspect) - something that is sadly lacking for High density operations.

As a pilot, you may be willing to fly in the promulgated high density areas, but tellingly, your airline and your manufacturer are not...

The CAA will allow you to do so as and when the correct paperwork hits their desk. Until then, their hands are tied.

Irrespective of anyones viewpoint on whether or not they shold be allowed to fly, they should get that facts right about how they could do so.

1. Safety case from airframe and engine manufacturers saying it is OK
2. Airlines submit said safety case
3. CAA grants permission

at the moment, no one has got past stage one for jets...

A certain Irish airline bypassed stage 1 in the above process, hence the lack of permission. Still, it's all free advertisement for them,despite the fact he talks complete rubbish.

[Heathrow Harry]

there are two choices - you fly until it affects your plane (think BA south of Java here) or you try and use models to predict and act on that

Modelling the atmosphere in real time is just about the hardest computing task there is so its unlikely to ever be perfect

Neither is wonderful but risking damaging a $30 mm -$ 300mm aircraft doesn't seem very wise to me

[Hamrah]

Gentlemen,

I am involved with an airline that has extensive operations in and around Iceland.

For all the experts on here who complain about government departments producing "no-fly " areas, here is the bottom line.

You or your airline are allowed to fly into any level of Ash you want, PROVIDED, you have submitted to them, a SAFETY case for doing so. In other words, if you are so confident that you will not be endangering your self, your aircraft and your passengers, put your money where your mouth is and make the submission.

I am prepared to bet that your Accountable manager will no be as " gung ho" as some of you appear with regard to the risks involved.

The UK CAA have publicly stated that NO airline has submitted a safety case to fly in Red Zone Ash. We, along with many other airlines have submitted a safety case to fly in low and medium level Ash areas and had them approved with an increase inspection requirement 9namely after every flight)

The reason why RYR were not allowed to fly yesterday, ultimately came down to the IAA saying " You havn't presented us a Safety case for flying in the red Zone"

And this lovely notion of " no-one has died from flying in Volcanic Ash" is typical Dead Body Economics. have you an acceptable number in your head ...would 200 be a good number or bad number?

[sabenaboy]

Originally Posted by Lord Spandex Masher

Pace, that's rather a bold, but unqualified, statement. Prove it. Please.

No, Lord Spandex, you PROVE that a few thimblefuls in an area the size of a four bedroom might bring an aircraft own.

Bottom line is you can't do that either! Then why are we now so worried all of a sudden when such a thing never happened before?

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Sabenaboy, correct. Which is the situation that Europe now finds itself in.

So which is the more prudent and safer option?

[JohnMcGhie]

Hmm... They must have re-designed the Dart???

The Dhahran airbridge was operated by 1 F27 from PLAD based in BAH ..... It was maximum punishment flying, very short flights at low altitude in humid air laden with dust. I've seen Dart compressor blades reduced to 25% when removed on scheduled overhaul.

When I trained on them, back in 1966 or so, the Dart had NO "compressor" blades. Did something change? Why wasn't I told

[Postman Plod]

The problem isn't the forecasts, which are accurate enough to be backed up by the observations.

Densities across all levels and across the entire red area may be at question, but nobody is saying that everywhere from 0-FL200 across the entire red zone has a fixed ash density, and nobody could ever say that. Some places will have, some places won't. Its in the same way that fronts don't have solid bands of identically intense rain, or showery airmasses aren't solid CB. So lets strike that one off now. The aviation industry has decades of experience of the products provided to know how they work, so pleading ignorance because they're volcanic ash products rather than sig wx, cat / turb, etc is odd given they've never complained about those.

I'd also imagine the VAAC are providing charts and information based on guidelines or regulations from ICAO. I'd imagine that the local regulators are also working on the basis of ICAO guidance, as well as information from the engine and airframe manufacturers. I'd imagine that the airlines are taking information from across the board! So perhaps more questions need to be aimed in that direction? The answers might be readily available, but everyone appears to be looking in the wrong place.

The biggest pressures here are commercial pressures. Therefore the issues are between the airlines and the regulators / manufacturers.

And saying all of this is based on speculation? No - its based on OBSERVED EVIDENCE. Its based on real ash falling from the sky, its based on satellite measurements, LIDAR, etc etc. Now whether that observed ash is safe to fly in is not for the VAAC to say.

[spinnaker]

sabenaboy said:

Last spring, there was a CB with frequent lightning strikes along the final app path. I elected to hold (about 20 mins) to have a clear path to the rwy. Others elected to press on through the CB and lightning to land.
I suppose that's why some average 4 lightning strikes/year and someone like myself averages 0,25 strikes/year.

Where has common sense gone to?

Dont twist the story. No I never pressed home approaches with cb etc. Remember, we have weather radar, not lightning detectors. Weather radar only show conditions that are likely to have conditions conducive to lightning. You can still get strikes from innocuous looking weather. I totally endorse your actions re Marekesh, and delaying departure due Wx. But because I did have strikes, please don't assume I was reckless or ignorant of the conditions that I flew in. I would run like a scared cat from anything I saw, on radar or visually, or reported by radio, that would endanger or frighten my pax and crew. Also take my comment that you link and quote in context.

[stev]

B*lls**t

it is a complete and utter load of B*lls**t from start to finish of this whole farce, and you can argue all you want about the should fly shouldn't fly crap from behind a desk, but until the CAA put a plane up and give proof of ash concentration then all the rest is hypothetical horse manure.
And for those of you interested in when it will be over, if the cloud even looks like it's approaching Heathrow or the CAA think about shutting UK airspace, then WW and a few others will see to it that it is over.

[sabenaboy]

Originally Posted by Lord Spandex Masher

So which is the more prudent and safer option?

The safest option is never to fly, which is also the stupidest option!

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Yes that's the safest option, but the safer option would be to conduct a proper risk assesment.

Then go flying.

[ayroplain]

Ryanair did not fly through any promulgated high density areas - fact.

I think you didn't really read my second paragraph.

[Postman Plod]

It possibly IS over if the volcano has stopped erupting, and Heathrow hadn't been threatened by any of the forecasts so far, even extrapolating out based on weather charts rather than ash.

You're right though - we need to make sure we have an aircraft available at no-notice to provide the research and evidence needed. Its a shame the airframe that was provided for this task wasn't provided in time and isn't ready yet. Perhaps if airlines, manufacturers and to an extent regulators had spent a bit more of their profits on the required research after the last eruption, rather than apparently forgetting it ever happened, we might have been a bit further forwards.

[Calendar]

I've resisted, and resisted, but can't do it any more....so here's my first ever post!

It is quite astonishing to read such emotive & ill-informed nonsense from supposedly well-qualified professionals on here.

There IS evidence of ash (Met Office News Blog).

And even if there wasn't, the Met Office (as stated in their blog above) have absolutely nothing to do with allowing or preventing anyone from going flying. The Met Office provide the data and forecasts, and it's up to the aviation authorities to interpret that data and draw conclusions.
No airspace has been closed. By anyone.

ICAO have been asking the airlines / airframers / engine manufacturers for years to provide them with data to enable guidelines for volcanic ash flying to be formed. For years no data or research has been forthcoming (sorry Sir, the dog ate my homework). It is not the job of the Met Office to fill the gaps that the airlines etc were too lazy / complacent to complete themselves.

And as for having a fully-tooled up research aircraft that should be available 24/7, 365 at no notice.....presumably someone can recommend the aircraft model that never has, and never will, go tech?

(might as well start with a bang, eh?!)

[ayroplain]

WW has just been interviewed on RTE and has stated that he doesn't disagree with what MOL has done and that they both have the same focus.

"Michael's message was very clear and very effective" being one of his quotes.

RT.ie Extra Video: BA chief executive Willie Walsh responds to the volcanic ash cloud - Video - RT News Player

[Postman Plod]

Yes, they want to make money, and any publicity is good publicity. I did hear WW on Radio4 this morning, and wondered if it was MOL I was listening to.... However at least it appears from reports that his aircraft flew through the ash areas.

But thats fine - their only job is to maximise profits and profile of their respective companies. As long as they are held to the rules and regulations by the regulators and manufacturers, and called on their BS in the case of MOL, then there won't be a problem!

[scotbill]

To imply that managers of the status of Willie Walsh would cavalierly put passengers at risk in the pursuit of profit seems quite a desperate attempt to boost the case for the prophets of doom. As someone once said, "If you think safety is expensive, try having an accident."
All flying involves a balance of risk but the accumulated wisdom and experience of many thousands of aviation professionals has made commercial aviation the incredibly safe experience it is today.
Geese can bring an aircraft down - as was demonstrated all too dramatically in New York. The Western Isles of Scotland have thousands of them. By the logic of some of the contributors to this thread, there is a much stronger case for banning all flights in such areas.

[Herman the Navigator]

Originally Posted by Postman Plod

But thats fine - their only job is to maximise profits and profile of their respective companies. As long as they are held to the rules and regulations by the regulators and manufacturers, and called on their BS in the case of MOL, then there won't be a problem!

Er, only part right... Ensuring that their respective airlines don't have a high profile safety incident/accident, which sends passengers scurrying to another airline is also a very big part of their jobs.

Never thought I'd write in defence of MOL but he is quite right (no matter what I or anyone else think of his personal style). And WW is a qualified pilot who is trying very hard to apply aircrew common sense, in the face of outrageous bureaucracy.

I've followed this whole farce quite closely and yet yesterday was the first I'd heard of airlines not submitting safety cases for high/red areas. Given that "high" is anything over 4 mg per m3, are they supposed to have made a safety case for anything from 4mg per m3 up to 4 tonnes per m3 (exaggeration for effect BTW)??? The "high" area was dreamt up by the regulators to get people flying again last year. That they have sat on their hands, and not made efforts to raise this threshold since, is causing further problems and making some people cry "unsafe" without any justification. The lack of safety cases is a red herring to deflect attention from the regulators IMO.

Now, instead of a very coarse contour plot, labelled with emotive terms like "low", "medium" and "high", why not produce a fine grained plot with many different numerical values and then allow airlines to generate a safety case relating to the level that they are prepared to accept (if any of this is really necessary vice "see/sense and avoid", in any case)?

Incidentally, the direct route from Kuala Lumpur to Perth is 130 nm from the volcano that caused Eric Moody his problems, at the closest point. I don't have figures for the other couple of known incidents but seriously doubt that they are much different. Hardly damning evidence for closing airspace 650 nm (and in some cases far further) from Iceland... If that sort of range really was in a dangerous zone (regardless of "exceptional weather conditions") we'd have seen far more incidents over the years (as all the sensible correspondents have already pointed out).

As for pilots who aren't worried about losing a bit of money by staying on the ground for a while - perhaps they think more about what will happen to us all when the whole economy collapses as a result of this nonsense.