The major factor is the ash stopping the airflow that cools the core turbine. In modern aircraft the core cooled with a large fan, which is what is visible to the passengers as they stand around waiting to board. This is tied to a turbine, or in some cases freewheeling on its own. This fan produces the cooling for the compressors and turbines in the core. Once airflow is unable to pass from one section to the other from a film of super heated ash stuck all over inside the engine, there's no airflow to cool the engine, and will also be ingested into the turbines. The first stage turbine blades are the hottest section of the engine itself, and the ash may cause a flame out or damage the turbine blades themselves, or a combination of the two. As I understand from speaking with the other engine techs at the heavy maint. facility I'm employed at, it takes moderately small quantities to cause massive damage and possible engine failure. Another issue is it affecting the pitot/static system and causing the avionics equipment that relies on the information gathered by those systems to fail. Flying blindly would be nearly as bad as the engines failing. It's not impossible to fly the plane without those systems, but depending on the pilot there's a great risk of death or injury. The aircraft are all grounded due to the high risk of engine/systems failure. Not only losing the aircraft itself, or at least the engines, but a good possibility that the passengers will also meet the same demise. Passengers that were injured from a crash can cost a airline anywhere from 10 million up to 50 million dollars in extreme cases just for rehabilitation. Death settlements are generally less, but multiplied by a few hundred passengers, its quite expensive none-the-less. So even if by chance they don't care about their passengers lives, but they care about money it's not economical to fly through it. Grounding the aircraft is by far cheaper than flying with such risks. To be clear, I'm a licensed AMT. There's more facts regarding ingestion of volcanic ash around online if anyone is really interested in researching it more thoroughly. I recommend people interested also take a look at the systems of an aircraft and how they work as well to get a better scope of what the problems of ash ingestion are.
If you really can't take all the lights on your desktop you always have the option to start DIY project. A simple rheostat would provide a dimmer for the LEDs, or you could always just use a pair of dykes and do a quick snip snip. A lot of products have power cables that only control the LEDs, you can always just pull the plug on 'em too, if you feel it's necessary.
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The major factor is the ash stopping the airflow that cools the core turbine. In modern aircraft the core cooled with a large fan, which is what is visible to the passengers as they stand around waiting to board. This is tied to a turbine, or in some cases freewheeling on its own. This fan produces the cooling for the compressors and turbines in the core. Once airflow is unable to pass from one section to the other from a film of super heated ash stuck all over inside the engine, there's no airflow to cool the engine, and will also be ingested into the turbines. The first stage turbine blades are the hottest section of the engine itself, and the ash may cause a flame out or damage the turbine blades themselves, or a combination of the two. As I understand from speaking with the other engine techs at the heavy maint. facility I'm employed at, it takes moderately small quantities to cause massive damage and possible engine failure. Another issue is it affecting the pitot/static system and causing the avionics equipment that relies on the information gathered by those systems to fail. Flying blindly would be nearly as bad as the engines failing. It's not impossible to fly the plane without those systems, but depending on the pilot there's a great risk of death or injury. The aircraft are all grounded due to the high risk of engine/systems failure. Not only losing the aircraft itself, or at least the engines, but a good possibility that the passengers will also meet the same demise. Passengers that were injured from a crash can cost a airline anywhere from 10 million up to 50 million dollars in extreme cases just for rehabilitation. Death settlements are generally less, but multiplied by a few hundred passengers, its quite expensive none-the-less. So even if by chance they don't care about their passengers lives, but they care about money it's not economical to fly through it. Grounding the aircraft is by far cheaper than flying with such risks. To be clear, I'm a licensed AMT. There's more facts regarding ingestion of volcanic ash around online if anyone is really interested in researching it more thoroughly. I recommend people interested also take a look at the systems of an aircraft and how they work as well to get a better scope of what the problems of ash ingestion are.
If you really can't take all the lights on your desktop you always have the option to start DIY project. A simple rheostat would provide a dimmer for the LEDs, or you could always just use a pair of dykes and do a quick snip snip. A lot of products have power cables that only control the LEDs, you can always just pull the plug on 'em too, if you feel it's necessary.