Ash cloud that never was: Volcanic plume over UK only a twentieth of safe-flying limit

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | April 25, 2010 | DAVID ROSE, MATT SANDY and SIMON MCGEE

[Stoat]

The Mail on Sunday can today reveal the full extent of the shambles behind the great airspace shutdown that cost the airlines £1.3 billion and left 150,000 Britons stranded - all for a supposed volcanic ash cloud that for most of the five-day flights ban was so thin it was invisible.

 

As the satellite images of the so-called 'aerosol index' published for the first time, right, demonstrate, the sky above Britain was totally clear of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano.

Inquiries by this newspaper have disclosed that:

 

• Attempts to measure the ash's density were hampered because the main aircraft used by the Meteorological Office for this purpose had been grounded as it was due to be repainted.

• Computers at the Met Office, which earlier forecast a 'barbecue summer' last year and a mild winter for this year, produced a stream of maps predicting the ash would cover a vast area, eventually stretching from Russia to Newfoundland. But across almost all of it, there was virtually no ash at all, and none visible to satellites.

•  Though there was some ash over Britain at times during the ban, the maximum density measured by scientists was only about one twentieth of the limit that scientists, the Government, and aircraft and engine manufacturers have now decided is safe.

'We never understood why a blanket ban had been imposed - something that would not have happened in other parts of the world,' a senior airline executive said yesterday.

[Stoat]

Absolutely, utterly monstrous.

 

People went bankrupt trying to pay for overpriced hotel rooms during this., and were profoundly inconvenienced.

Sounds like a completely needless destruction of many lives.

[neodad]

Your government at work. See also: Swine Flu scare, Hawaiian Tsunami, etc...

[Jack Hydrazine]

“Sounds like a completely needless destruction of many lives.”

The Left has an excellent track record doing that!

[xjcsa]

Looks like you were right about all this.

[Travis McGee]

But we should trust their “computer models” for man-caused global warming forecasts decades in the future.

[Wiggins]

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

[huldah1776]

Are the same people running this connected to the Global Warming, oh, excuse me, climate change group? Sounds like the same excellent standards of operation.

[rovenstinez]

THESE governments aren´t working. They just SCARE. Do you think our guy in Washington was pushing buttons and telling them to keep things grounded...as green as he is..

[muawiyah]

Here you have one of Earth's most powerful volcanic areas puffing stuff into the air and you think it's OK to just ignore it.

Maybe they didn't need to ban flying ~ but certainly providing customers with an informed picture of the risk might well have seen NO ONE getting on board those planes!

It's like this ~ let's say that every 20 trips your vessel blows up and everybody is killed (thinking of Shuttle trips).

That's a risk you might be willing to take for science, but for trips to the 7-11 to buy beer?

[GeronL]

lol

[rwfromkansas]

The clouds showed up very clearly in the sat images.....not sure what this article is talking about.

They were quite obvious.

That said, I did come to the conclusion a blanket ban was over-the-top.

There was plenty of free air in between the clouds. It basically came in waves, leaving lots of time they could have flown even avoiding all the ash.

Honestly, I am of the opinion better safe than have one accident, but it now looks like the blanket ban was a bit too much.

[Darkwolf377]

Good observations. I’ll remember them for the next time a lib goes on about “Even if Global Warming is wrong, what harm could it do to clean up the planet, huh, huh???”

[Carling]

I’m from Oregon. People fly through clouds thicker than this most days of the winter.

What’s your point?

[dr_who]

See how on the ball we the government are? Vote Labour and keep the UK super-dooper safe!

[gleeaikin]

There only plane was unavailable because it needed painting. Unfortunately, resources for prevention and research are rare and scant. When our vulcanologists went to monitor Pinatubo and advise our Air Force they took all our available monitoring equipment and it still was not enough. Furthermore, there was no equipment left to monitor any volcano problem that might have arisen in Latin America. This after 23,000 people will killed in Armaro. There is a lot to complain about where govt. is concerned, but lack of capacity to warn of real dangers should not be one of them.

[little jeremiah]

Good link to a forum for aviation people, mostly pilots I think. I found it a few days ago and have been reading the ash thread. Most of it is way too technical for me but I have learned some things. They have a very long thread about the ash, and other threads such as the Polish crash.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news-13/

[muawiyah]

I guess you're from Oregon.

This particular volcanic formation was also puffing out invisible fluorine gas. There was enough of it in Iceland to put vast areas off limits for watering animals.

The point you were going to make is, I believe, that people in Oregon have some sort of superior knowledge regarding volcanos since, after all, you blew one up.

Sorry, different kind of volcano.

[Balata]

Here you have one of Earth's most powerful volcanic areas puffing stuff into the air and you think it's OK to just ignore it.

We don't have to ignore it, because as we are flying we can see it and fly around it.

In the early '70's Iceland had a similar volcano. As a pilot we could see it, fly around it without a problem. This is just more of the political BS.

[Bob]

I’m from Oregon. People fly through clouds thicker than this most days of the winter.

While perhaps thicker, I'm quite certain that your Oregon clouds don't have the abrasive characteristics of a volcanic ash cloud.

[LeGrande]

What is wrong with just following standard VFR’s?

Staying clear of the clouds is easy.

This is an example of clueless idiots in charge. There is always some risk to everything. The only way to eliminate all risk is to kill yourself.