Iceland Volcano's Ash Grounds European Air Travel

Ch_Omega writes "From the article at CBSNews: 'An ash-spewing volcano in Iceland emptied the skies of aircraft across much of northern Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 9/11 terror attacks. British air space shut down, silencing the trans-Atlantic hub of Heathrow and stranding tens of thousands of passengers around the world. Aviation officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again and said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had brought one of the world's most congested airspaces to a standstill.'" The BBC says "Safety group Eurocontrol said the problem could persist for 48 hours," and the Deccan Herald describes some of the effects on the ground in the volcano's home turf: "In Iceland, hundreds of people are fleeing rising floodwaters as the volcano under the glacier Eyjafjallajokull erupted yesterday again, for a second time in less than a month."

Comments

Could last a while

[mick232]

The last eruption was in 1821 and lasted 2 years... you better get yourself some train tickets if you want to travel in Europe!

Re:Could last a while

[NotQuiteReal]

heh, what's less "green", an erupting volcano for a few years or all the airplane pollution in the world for the same time?

Re:Nothing unusual

[FranTaylor]

Oh yes losing power to all 4 engines at once is nothing unusual.

Re:Nothing unusual

[IndustrialComplex]

The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on. Sky a far away is a little bit more yellowish, nothing more. It also doesn't affect breathing as even normal street dust is more dangerous.

I'm curious as to how you claim that normal street dust is more dangerous. What do you base this on? Volcanic ash is mostly silicates, and based on what happens when you inhale other silicates (Asbestos) I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.

As for why they would close the airports. It is a highly abrasive substance, and is very fouling. Running aircraft through a volcanic cloud is like subjecting it to several years of wear all at once, and not the normal wear that an engineer would design for. You would be running through your engines a very fine abrasive compound and at the same time reducing the performance of your engines as you have displaced some of the air. It can clog your machinery very quickly, especially non-jet engines. (Imagine running a piston engine and adding a highly abrasive and clogging dust to the fuel-air mixture.)

A tallent for understatment.

[LWATCDR]

"Having all your engines fail isn't minor, but it isn't on the same scale as an actual crash."

The amount of shear luck involved not to mention skill on the part of the pilots is just over the top.

Having a 747 loose all power and not crash is just short of proof of divine intervention.
Honestly that is probably the worst thing that could happen short of a crash and should be avoided at all costs.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[fm6]

Oh please. Yes, you can glide a jetliner without engines, but it's not easy. As somebody already pointed out, the rate of descent is pretty nasty. Sometimes, very rarely, they get lucky and make it to a landing strip before they run out of altitude. Most of the time, they're not lucky.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's impressive is how Cap'n Sullenberger did it in the Hudson River after a bird strike. Large buildings with nowhere clear to land other than the river, managed not to hit the nearby bridges, and also enough luck that there were no boats in the way when he ditched - yet they were all near enough to commence rescue within few minutes of the accident. And all that in a much smaller time window than engines going out at altitude when hitting an ash cloud.

A bit off topic, but still quite impressive in how it demonstrates the ability to land an airliner with no engines on water while keeping it in one piece.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[sphealey]

> You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard
> to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering
> capabilities, but a plane at 20,000' has a lot of potential energy, and a very
> efficient mechanism for converting that energy into stable, controllable flight.

Besides the concept of depending on luck and chance to safely land thousands of passengers instead of the engineering, training, and procedures that ended the routine yearly death toll of passenger flying around 1960, the other minor point is that volcanic ash destroys gas turbine engines. Not "breaks them so they need a bit of maintenance", but destroys them. So now you have hundreds of airplanes with 1000 or so destroyed engines scattered all over northern Europe. And a global capacity for making new engines of a few dozen a month.

sPh

Re:Nothing unusual

[timgradwell]

Reminds me of the old adage - "Red sky at night... volcanic ash in the atmosphere."

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually untrue. Actual sand is not a problem for a modern jet engine

Which isn't what the parent said. Did you just want to wheel out your A380 advert anecdote? :) The parent said hot ash turning into molten glass-like substance is a problem for engines. Which you disagreed with, then repeated!