Ella, i agree completely!

And here in Germany, they seem to be all asleep, the report of the DLR plane has been out for hours now, but nothing is happening.

Well, that transport minister of ours has been doing what the advisors told him, from day one. He can't even pronounce ICAO right, so I doubt he even knows what it is.

Nic

So looking at the groovy new ash charts, it appears that now and tomorrow below FL200 the ash concentrations are IN EXCESS of the new thresholds...... so why are we operating? Also there is a big black area which is 10 times above "standard" threshold heading our way. Looks like the euphoria may be short lived :/

A4

The million dollar question right now is....

DID one of the BA EGLL inbounds this evening report burning smells during its descent. And if it did, whats the story?!

Someone here must have heard it?

No, its not black or white, its a risk assessment.

Statistics. Compare it to smoking - will a cigarette kill you? Maybe not but it will increase your chances of dying. Exposure to different levels of ash will increase the probability of damage.

This is obviously what has been decided on - a risk that airlines will take on for themselves and decide if its worth it.

Seems perfectly fair..

Met Office response, emphasis added
 

The Met Office acknowledges the decision by CAA to change the engine tolerance levels for the safe levels of ash ingestion into aircraft engines.

The Met Office is the north-west European Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre with responsibility for issuing the Volcanic Ash Advisories for this area in line with internationally agreed standards and processes as designated by the aviation regulator and industry.

We will now provide timely advice to NATS about the dispersion of the volcanic ash in line with the new engine tolerance criteria. [more]



Met Office: Icelandic volcano eruption

So let me get this right. NATS didn't want the flights to land because someone couldn't bring themselves to do the authorisation (I doubt the ash conditions improved), but were quite content to have them circling in a holding pattern in the "ash contamination" area.

I wonder what the Daily Mail will have to say about this tomorrow.

Round the table
 

At the meeting - NATS, CAA, MET, GOVT, BA and other airlines, who banged the table loudest ?
Who spoke civilservicespeak, who spoke common sense ?

Yep, many of the posts have been cleaned off but it appeared the BA aircraft were put into holding at places like LND, then a couple were given direct to EGLL and EGKK with the speed up, then put into holding again, at lower altitude. I have online access to near realtime ADS-B data.

If 2100Z was a hard constraint, it seemed to be waived for the Vancouver bird, I watched it land several minutes before the hour. Someone suggested it was timed for the news at ten, perhaps not that farfetched considering the media circus and brinksmanship going on.

Do engines have to cool down before they can be boroscoped ?

How long will this add to a flight's turnaround?

From a well known Belgian press agency:
 

Bij de inspectie van een vliegtuig van de Amerikaanse maatschappij World Airways op de Internationale Luchthaven Oostende-Brugge zijn assen gevonden op de motoren. Dat zegt de luchthaveninspectie.

Het vliegtuig wordt op de grond gehouden. Of er schade is, moet woensdag blijken na een grondige inspectie door een gespecialiseerde technicus. Die wordt nu naar Oostende gevlogen. Hij zou er woensdagmorgen arriveren. Het vliegtuig landde dinsdagnamiddag nadat het was opgestegen in Maastricht.http://content.yieldmanager.com/ak/q.gif




"Er zijn resten van as gevonden maar er is nog geen schade vastgesteld", beklemtoont de luchthaveninspectie in Oostende. "Of er in de motoren schade is, zal pas woensdag blijken."
Het vliegtuig van World Airways was het tweede toestel dat op Oostende landde. Bij een inspectie van het eerste toestel werd geen as aangetroffen. Dat toestel staat ook nog in Oostende. Een tweede vrachtvlucht van World Airways werd dinsdag afgelast door de vondst op het eerste toestel. Dat vliegtuig moest uit Duitsland komen.



Ash found on engine of aircraft landed @ OST. Aircraft grounded. Engineer to be flown over for more thorough inspection of engines.

Mine Dog

You dont believe everything yoiu read in an unamed press agency do you? Facesaving, scaremongering or headline grabbing come to mind.

Pace

Google translate the article from Dutch to English before Dishing it, departure and Arrival points are outlined as is the airline ( World Airways ) who it is said have subsequently decided to cancel today´s flights pending an inspection for which they have to fly in an engineer . As you say it could be duff information.

It was fascinating to watch the Speedbirds, online at flightradar this evening, circling around the UK waiting for the facade to be dropped.

There is no substitute for real life experience and training when it comes to making decisions.

Aircrew in these parts get first class training. The older they get, the more real life experience also.

Unfortunately, British MPs are steeped in training for political survival. They live in a world coccooned from real life. Similarily, the bureaucrats work in a cossetted environment and have no appreciation of how to survive in a commercial environment.

I've worked in the commercial environment and am now enjoying a much more peaceful existence as a bureaucrat so I've got experience of and sympathies with both groups.

By Saturday last, my life experience and training were detecting acquiescence by and the odious whiff of bovine excreta from the Democratic Establishment.

In the absence of any apparent effort to make a meaningful scientific investigation of the possible malignant effects from the unpronouncable volcano's orifice it was left to WW to go for it.

I'm sure he was 100% confident in his decision, bolstered by his training and life experience.

Pace:

Press agency is Belga, biggest and most known agency in Belgium.

Still: you're right: doubt anything you read, esp. on a rumours network.

Mine Dog
 

Here's the translation

Couldn't you have done that?

This is a forum which completely ignores anyone who isn't a professional pilot. Don't have your fATPL? Then your opinion is worthless.

Obviously that thought train has missed this station. It surprises me somewhat that so many people on here are experts on the Eyjafjallajokull glacier.

I will assume that everyone has been doing their job at NATS / CAA and trust their professional judgement. The damage on the F18 was real, and if there is no longer that risk in their judgement, let's proceed with caution.

There is far too much talk of conspiracy, incompetence or allegations of lack of decisionmaking on the thread. I would rather assume people did their jobs to keep us all safe until proven otherwise...rather than the contrary position that many seem to have taken of "let's fly until we find that we are wrecking engines"...

If the above is the attitude, then god help us. I wonder if World Airways has just incurred a $3.2m overhaul cost (a la NASA cost) for their short hop from Belgium to Maastricht today. Fools.

Ella:
Are you being disingenuous? Finnish Air Force, USAF, and presumably the ash-covered Scottish Search & Rescue helicopter have all proven that there was a real danger at some point on Day 1. Would you like to fly 200km downwind of the volcano? Of course not.

Given that volcanic activity is know to be a problem to air travel, that iceland is a very active island upwind of Europe and that there was NO orchestrated, pre-planned response to measure the cloud and refer to established and agreed levels of risk then the airline industry, aviation bodies and governments are at least lazy if not incompetent.

That there isn't some organisation or another coming out of the woodwork saying "I told you so" is also surprising, perhaps researches thought that the airline industry could look after itself?


Mickjoebill

ReHeat

But that is the real question we can all see the billowing solid black clouds at the point of the eruption and no one would want to touch that.

But 2 Km, 20 km, 200km, 2000 km ??? downwind? at what point downwind does dispersion make a serious threat to life and limb become minimal to no threat?

Pace

Could it be perhaps that the closure of airspace was indeed the planned response, and that all that was lacking was adequate PR. Could it possibly be that the Met Office, NATS and these VAAC units did indeed do their jobs based upon the skills they thought they needed?

There are valid accounts (and air samples) of some real volcanic rubbish in UK skies over the past 4 days. Don't you suppose that this validly supported a framework, using models, that provided forecasts that this cloud remained dangerous.

Here's my point: I'm conservative, and don't know much about volcanoes. The vulcanologists seem to be doing their job in conjunction with the Met Office, and NATS have made a reasonable decision on the basis of that to protect flight safety.

I can't understand the cavalier attitude here when so few are clearly experts, and the evidence to err to conservatism is rather obvious.

My analogy would be that many posters on here would think it OK to takeoff on a heavy flight from Singapore with the torrential rainstorm starting rather than waiting for 10 minutes at the threshold, simply as the last man got away with it. I have but one life.

I'll assume that you've not read anything on here at all as to the effect of silica in the engines of the Finnish F18s, NASA's DC8 in an earlier eruption, the air samples taken by Cranfield, the muck picked up by the Scottish heli crew, and the new evidence that World Airways picked up engine deposits on a short hop to Maastricht today...?