the latest from nats

Statement on Icelandic volcanic eruption: Sunday April 18, 1500

Conditions around the movement of the layers of the volcanic ash cloud over the UK remain dynamic. NATS is maintaining close dialogue with the Met Office and with the UK’s safety regulator, the CAA, in respect of the international civil aviation policy we follow in applying restrictions to use of airspace. We are currently awaiting CAA guidance.
We are working closely with Government, airports and airlines, and airframe and aero engine manufacturers to get a better understanding of the effects of the ash cloud and to seek solutions.

Based on the latest information from the Met Office, NATS advises that the restrictions currently in place across UK controlled airspace will remain in place until at least 0700 (local time) tomorrow, Monday 19 April.

We will of course continue to make best use of any breaks in the ash cloud to offer opportunities to airlines as they arise. There may be limited opportunity in Orkney and Shetland from 1900 (local time) today for some flights to operate under individual coordination with ATC. However, it is most unlikely that many flights will operate today and anyone hoping to travel should contact their airline before travelling to the airport.
We will continue to monitor Met Office information and review our arrangements in line with that. We will advise further arrangements at approximately 2100 (local time), today.

Icelandair....
 

daikilo,

Icelandair is able to fly to Trondheim on the Norwegian west coast today due to the fact that the airspace in NW Norway has been opened - at least for now (acc. Norwegian newspaper VG.NO).
The Icelandic airspace is not closed apart from the area directly affected by the eruption. That's why Icelandair has been able to continue flying to their US destinations.

SAS' main international hub is Copenhagen - but flying to/from Denmark is not possible, as airspace closed from ground and up - even for VFR traffic.

BA 009 in 1982 flew directly into the ash-cloud over Mt Galunggung, as in directly over the volcano. It was a completely different scenario.

So please STOP using BA 009 as a reference to what might happen here over central Europe hundreds of miles away from the the volcano.:ugh:

I am not an aviator. In our Rus. media the volcanic ash is not described as "ash", for general public like me. But as "liquid glass", Eyjafjallajoekull peculiarity now is producing "liquid glass". Which then flies as "tiny glass particles, 2mm big in size only" and "if not coloured by additives - you wouldn't see them, by un-aided eye".
The BA 1982 example, of 4 engines failure (and then working again) (post 1016 here) in Russian media was described by the pilots seeing nothing in the air at all but good day and clear skies. And only on the ground it was noticed the front window is like peck ?-ed like was bombardded a bit by tiny glassy those particles, like as if someone scratched the window.

Otherwise here we also don't know nothing; volcanologists of all calibres are being terrorised re the exact composition of the "liquid glass" and how it behaves at var. temperatures, and all.

But you forget to mention they actually flew over th e plume itself at night. All we are asking is:

1. Real tests of air in all different air spaces that have been closed.

2. Reduced restrictions eg; allow daytime VMC flying.

3. Change ATC procedures so flights can reach FL200 in the fastest way possible.



Anyway this is now an international emergency and as such a compromise will have to be found. It is a matter of a when European ministers get their act together. Sometimes it feels like the UK they are very slow coping with anything out of the usual, such as snow.

Maybe the restarting of the engines was unrelated to the time afforded by a 24,000 feet drop and more to do with the new altitude it found itself at?

First of all it wasn't empty, the CEO was on board, also head of flight ops.
Second, it's not just one flight, KLM is in the proces of flying ten aircraft from Germany back to Holland.

What do you propose to solve this mess we're in? We have got to go forward some way otherwhise it will be game over pretty soon.

Very interesting thread - much more information than has been available in the MSM, as I commented here. Also the wonderful diversity of opinions for which forums such as this are (in)famous for :\

I live close to LGW, and the sky is hazy today - though it's hard to know if this is normal high-pressure pollution or anything more igneous. There has been dust on the cars, but I'd agree it looks more like pollen, at least here.

I also agree that within hours (not days) people should have been doing substantial research on validating computer models, the impact of different concentrations of ash on aircraft and engines, and attempting to identify safe areas of airspace. We have the ability to dynamically shut areas of airspace (military, purple airspace), and I'm sure this could have been used, perhaps with significant flow control, to keep things moving.

The fact that so little of the MSM commentary has been scientifically informed has resulted in the volcano becoming a "bogeyman" - this will also cause lasting damage to air travel once the risk has gone. I have no doubt that it is a tough call to be one of the people recommending shutdown of airspace - it's even tougher to recommend reopening it - but hey, we all have jobs to do ....

BDiONU

Hitting your head against a brick wall I think. After all, some so called 'professionals' on here seem to think that a 747 suffering total engine failure, but manageing to relight them after a 20,000' drop is OK :ugh:.

Fortunate and lucky - yes... but a basis on which to resume flying :eek:

It has been mentioned many times - I'll say it once more, data stating what density in PPM of vocanic ash it is deemed safe fo Jet engines to fly through is woefully lacking.

Without such hard data it is very difficult not to impose a blanket ban, certainly in the early stages, and believe it or not, 5 days can be considered early.

This blanket ban may be lifted after lots of test flights, but the FACT of the matter is, if, as requested and mentioned in a post by a VAAC employee above, the manufacturers of the engines had tested and produced VA limits, the the blanket ban would not have been imposed. There would still have been restrictions to flying, but far less debilitating than we have at the moment.

The FACT that there are no such figures means that an industry that has safety as its number one priority - ATC ANSPs - can do noting else other than impose the restrictions.

It is the duty of the Government, with appropriate advisors, to step in and allow a variance on what are internationally accepted procedures.

The 'experts' on here (you know the ones who rubbish scientists etc) do not have a clue if they think that the buck stops with the ANSP.

Alice025

They saw nothing because it was at night - had it been day they had seen a cloud like the one over Iceland now.

But again BA 009 is not relevant to the situation over central Europe today.

Quote:"Let me get this straight: failures on all four engines and a 25,000+ feet drop isn't worrying to you? I mean, sure, that's ok if you're at FL410, but maybe not at, say, FL240?"

The point I was trying to make that there's a big difference between flying through a dense cloud of volcanic ash (like the BA) and flying through wat we have over Europe at the moment.

The point relating to BA's engines was that even them restarted so flying through European airspace at this moment poses no immidiate threat to the engines!!!!!

I am repeating myself but , Yes at the longer run it could mean highger maintenance cost and even a very thin layer off anything building up on turbineblades will be picked up by health monitoring.

And yes I would be worried if it would cause engines to stall and quit during flight.

A BA 747 is scheduled to fly from Heathrow to Cardiff today via 50N20W airborne for 3 hrs 50 ish, assuming they are doing there own tests and conducting a maintenance check in Cardiff afterwards???

concentrations
 

No. Work may proceed more quickly now! But in fairness to them, Airbus started talking in earnest before the current crisis.

As has been noted many times here, volcanic ash pervades the atmosphere and so the warning has to stop somewhere. The limit of damage appears to be something a bit below concentrations that can be remotely sensed in normal conditions (i.e. when the cloud can't be remotely sensed it might still be dangerous for a little while longer. There have been some examples of aircraft encountering clouds that have turned out to be mostly sulphates (hey, and we love flying through sulphuric acid, don't we?) without much ash, and some controversy around how dangerous these are (Google: Hekla 2000 NASA Grindle - a 35 hour old cloud from Hekla, Iceland)

anotherthing: So let's get researching, dude! We have a wonderful sandbox, with no commercial traffic in the way anywhere. And the airlines are losing so much money that I'm sure they'd be prepared to offer an airframe each if they were told it might get things moving in 24 hours.

Please STOP referring to BA009. This is unhelpful. Nobody is talking about flying through the plume. All that's happening is that it is feeding the media frenzy and popular panic about the risks. We are more likely to be talking about reducing engine lives (possibly substantially) than losing airframes.

BA are prob sending some of the old timers up to reduce their pension deficit.

Young Paul - is that statement meant to provide comfort? Doesn't seem to have much certainty to me. We don't know for sure, but is that not the point?

I'm currently stuck overseas but not sure if I want to go based on "more likely" and "possibly subtantially..". Surely we need the test results to be more conclusive yet.

Exactly what I had on my car this mroning described to a tee. I'm in Peterborough.
My two cents? Saftey comes first.......... and I do have a replacable air filter under my bonnet.

Aw, look, it's really not hard to do research. Launch an aeroplane, let it fly around for a couple of hours, then when it gets down, take the engine apart. It's not like the airlines, pilots or engineers have much else to do with their time at the moment.

Better still, launch five, into areas with forecast different concentrations. Keep then within a safe distance of airfields. Stick a couple of observers on each to additionally report anything odd, provide additional support in case anything does go wrong. There are about a thousand aircraft sitting around doing nothing, at a guess, and the airlines are collectively losing hundreds of millions of pounds a day. There is no shortage of pilots who would be more than happy to fly a "weathership". If the crew are really freaked by something, head for home as soon as anything deviates from normal - in the knowledge that you have the undivided attention of ATC, fire services, airports .....

cb,

The following Airbus document doesn't really say much apart from "be careful out there", but it does say :

http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi..._ENV-SEQ06.pdf

web cam
 

Question i was looking to: Eyjafjallajökull frá Hvolsvelli

Seems to give a totally different picture than yesterday.

Smoke also move in different direction. Is it a different cam or what?


Grtz

"Aw, look, it's really not hard to do research. Launch an aeroplane, let it fly around for a couple of hours, then when it gets down, take the engine apart. It's not like the airlines, pilots or engineers have much else to do with their time at the moment."




I think Easy are looking to do that tomorrow, possibly from LTN?

Not a sausage here, on any of the last three days. Either at the office in Edinburgh or at home in Fife.

Amsterdam FIR opens for VFR traffic
 

Amsterdam FIR just opened up for VFR traffic:

A) EHAA
B) 1004181324 C) 1004182359EST
E) DUE TO VOLCANIC ACTIVITY IN ICELAND AND THE RESULTING ASHCLOUDS IN
THE AMSTERDAM FIR, ALL CIVIL IFR OPERATIONS ARE PROHIBITED.
VFR FLIGHTS ARE ALLOWED AT OWN DISCRETION. AFTER COMPLETING EACH VFR
FLIGHT A PILOT REPORT SHOULD BE FILED IMMEDIATLY TO
VULKAAN(AT)KNMI.NL CONTAINING FOLLOWING INFORMATION: ROUTE, ALTITUDE,
DATE AND TIME OF FLIGHT IN LOCAL TIME, OBSERVATIONS REGARDING
(ASH)CLOUDS. EVEN WHEN NO OBSERVATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE A PILOT REPORT
IS MANDATORY. WHEN EMAIL IS NOT AVBL A PILOT REPORT CAN BE MADE TO
LOCAL ATC BY RADIO OR AIRPORT AUTHORITY.
ALSO, CAA-NL STATES THE PITOT TUBE SHOULD BE CHECKED CAREFULLY BEFORE
AND AFTER EACH FLIGHT AND ALSO INCREASED MONITORING OF FLIGHT SPEED
AND HEIGHT INDICATION AND WINDSCREEN TRANSPARENCY DURING FLIGHT IN
THE RISK AREA.
POLICE, SAR AND HEMS FLIGHTS ARE EXEMPTED. SFC/FL245.)

Aerologic are alledgedly attempting a LEJ-CVG flight today on a 777 :\

Germany
Berlin-Tegel, Berlin-Schönefeld, Erfurt, Leipzig, Hannover and Hamburg

re opened for departures to the east.

Glad to see the (Met Research?) Dornier fly past here - near to EGOS - just now, hopefully finding out more for us. Slightly concerned though to see it so low - approx 1500-2000ft - as it continued northwards, presumably towards Manchester/west coast.

It seems like using those military drones with sensing equipment to measure ash would be the safest and most efficient way to monitor the cloud.

VAACman, I'm not a mod or anything, but welcome, and thanks for logging in. It's nice to hear from the experts.

The Finnish F18 experience
 

Puolustusvoimat - Frsvarsmakten - The Finnish Defence Forces

Worth a moment of the sceptics' time.

aviation in europe
 

It looks like the greenies and http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...s/censored.gif are charge all over Europe and the volcanic ash cloud has proved to be a godsent excuse to ground those horrible, noisy and dreadful polluting jets. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.:uhoh: maybe or maybe not, time will tell.

There are Condor aircraft over Germany currently.

Flight Number : CFG881
Company : Condor Flugdienst
ICAO Hex Code : 3C4AA6
Reg Code : D-ABUF
Model : Boeing - B767-330 (ER)
Last Message : 14:49:03 UTC
Latitude : 50.29923
Longitude : 8.15653
Altitude : 10126 m - 33222 ft
Ground Speed : 834 km/h - 518 mph - 450 knots
Vertical Speed : -858 m/min - -2815 ft/min (DESCENT)
Squawk : 7654
Heading : 302º

A second one is at 24,000.
Source: radarvirtuel.com/

Well yes OK, circuitbreaker13, that is indeed the point, or part of it, but not in the way you intend. The stuff that's in the atmosphere now is potentially more lethal precisely because, given the role of ice in the eruption, it is not just garden-variety volcanic ash.

Some posts in this thread undermine my confidence in the judgement of many who practise the profession of pilotry (if there is such a word ...).

response to WHBM's many questions to us all.
 

1. This comparison is irrelevant...... why? wind.

2. The indon incident, cost millions of dollars and nearly killed 400 people, if we told you that the concentration of ppm was x, how do you come up with a figure that is safe? You cannot.

3. See answer number 1.

4. no good answer here but, Enroute avoidance is slightly different from flying through what is known to be there. eg Depart into the ash, fly through it, land in it. Domestic European flight.

5. just a stab at this answer but ICAO rules prevent ATC from allowing you to use the airspace when ash is known or forecast. Perhaps in other parts of the world, ie indon, they don't subscribe to these parts of ICAO. I know that Australia picks and chooses what ICAO rules to adopt. That is why this volcano is different.

6. Hawaii may have been using a piston engine aircraft, or again may not have had laws preventing the flight.

7. Erm, Russia is more west than western europe. This argument is like saying why the hell is Kazakhstan and China still flying.


A return fire question to you. How many deaths need to spared for you to say that the ban was worth it?

Marconiphone, so just what do you call those KLM, Lufthansa and Condor pilots who are flying right now in search of a solution? It's nice to say that the ice may even make this ash even more dangerous (please give a link to this, not heard it before), but that does not answer the question: is there enough of the stuff up here to do any damage?

Any sensible pilot would ground his airplane the moment he thinks there is a real threat out there, so that's not the point.


Allrounder, if 'wind' is your answer to question number one, we might as well close of the rest of the worlds airspace. Clearly that's not what you want. So the question is very relevant. How close was Moody to the vulcano, how relevant is his case to our little situation.

Germany has now opened the airports Berlin, Hannover, Erfurt and Leipzig until 2000 local time for flights to the East.

volcano webcams
 

They've been running for days... granted they're stationary, but whatever lens (or window the lens is behind) isn't pitted, or even dusted up..... You'd think at that proximity, even if all were upwind (and the two I'm watching are in opposition to each other, it would appear), you'd think there'd be SOME residue. No big conclusion being drawn (or jumped to) here, just a simple observation.

Transavia are airborne to. Over Nijmegan at the moment. Seems everyone is at it.

I need some clarification about ash threat
 

It is almost ten years since I read this forum almost every day. I found an extaordinary amount of valuable and interesting informations. Some experts make here an extraordinary work. Bravo to all of them.

As I am only a SLF I refrained from posting until today (just reading up to now). I jumped over the fence because I have 2 facts that I am unable to fit with the general informations regarding the ash cloud and grounding of flights. This isprobably because I miss something and you may help me to know what.

1st fact:
All vulcanologists say that the present icelandic eruption is a small one (less than a cubic km of ash sofar) compared to some bigger eruption in the world which can throw up to several hundreds of cubic km of ash.
Iceland has several active volcanoes erupting each year with the same intensity or greater, sometimes several in the same time.
How can it happen that we were not hurt by the phenomenon during the last past 20 years? I found a partial answer in this thread : the jetstreams blow in an unfavarable and uncommon direction towards us. OK. But what is the usual direction ? The answer is also in this thread : directly from Iceland to the south mid-atlantic.

Therefore, what I do not understand is how transatlantic flights (some passing relatively close to Iceland) never cross ash clouds comming from active volcano in the past? It is hard to believe and apparently nobody has been frighten by this volcanic activity until nowadays. Why?

2nd fact
It happens that I was on board of a Lan Chile flight in april 2008 when the Chalten volcano has suddenly erupted with a HUGE eruption. Thru the window, I could see the huge column of ash although we were probably as far as 500 km away (a little south of Santiago). Fortunately for us, we were north-east of the volcano and the ash cloud was going straight to the west. BUT, the same week I had a phone call with my friends who live in Buenos Aires and they told me they could hardly breathe because of the volcanic smoke which was comming up to them right in the street of Buenos Aires (1500 km away from the volcano). As far as I know (I was watching at the announced schedules to see if my next flights were affected) none or very little flights have been canceled during this period. Including the flights BA - Calafate and BA - Ushuaia which were passing relatively close to the volcano downwind.

I ear that the present situation is very dangerous, enough to ground the entire european fleet, but this seems to me relatively uncompatible which what I described above. Please can somebody help me to find what it special with thr current volcanic activity?

By the way, it is not just free speculation, I expect to fly to Indonesia in 10 days from now if the gods and ATC permit.

Ash will damage jet engines and piston ones as well (If they have no filters).

The dust cloud these day at my latitude may be lingering high above me but i don't see it. It must be well diluted... The sky is deep blue and at night stars are deep white...

Airports are quiet, and liners have their intakes covered, sometimes by improvised plastic and tape.

"Dust" is now the issue but what about sand ? Nobody talks about it.

I am not even referring to sand Storms but to thermic moderate winds blowing in many North African places and Gulf states .

Last year in September I went to an Airshow in Tripoli Libya, with a Sukhoi 29 and 2 Extra 300's.

The weather was really great with only light wind blowing.

That light wind was carrying sand, to be deposited all over the place.

Neither the Sukhoi nor the Extra's have air filters. So the cylinders ingurgitate what bother's our eyes and grind our teeth.

Nothing we could do about it, other than cover the air intakes whenever we were not flying, and flushing those canopies with water to avoid scratching.

But what about the Mig's , Marchetti's, Antonov's and Boeings most used daily all covered with a thin layer of sand ???

Let me tell you, when we came back home we had to strip every panel and clean every part, shampoo for fuselage and wings, gasoline with compressed air for the engine bay, the undercarriage and all hinges.

Sand was everywhere, we brought back a few ounces judging by the brownish streak left on the floor after water/gasoline evaporated..

I'd like to hear about someone who has experience with such an environment, or somebody who'se been working on engines exposed to such a harsh treatment!!!