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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.
GIGO
The Icelandic volcano, Katla, should have a follow up eruption within about six months.
That one will make this recent eruption look like a walk in the park. Maybe then Europe will be justified in shutting down their airspace.
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That sums it up well.
It pains me to say this, but on this occasion I’m with the regulators. For years they’ve been trying to persuade the airlines to jointly commission proper research on an acceptable maximum threhold of ash through which it’s safe to fly. Such research has never been conducted.The airlines have always refused, insisting on an ‘any ash present, no fly’ regime. The airlines have only themselves to blame now this has come back to hit them.
It appears that the powers that be are desperate for crisis.
Bitch bitch moan , moan bitch bitch moan.
Get a life
The results of a brief seven minute encounter with a diffuse ash cloud.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/p...ain_H-2511.pdf
In the early morning hours of February 28, 2000, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) DC-8 Airborne Sciences research airplane inadvertently flew through a diffuse plume of volcanic ash from the Mt. Hekla volcano. There were no indications to the flight crew, but sensitive onboard instruments detected the 35-hr-old ash plume. Upon landing there was no visible damage to the airplane or engine first-stage fan blades; later borescope inspection of the engines revealed clogged turbine cooling air passages. The engines were removed and overhauled at a cost of $3.2 million. Satellite data analysis of the volcanic ash plume trajectory indicated the ash plume had been transported further north than predicted by atmospheric effects. Analysis of the ash particles collected in cabin air heat exchanger filters showed strong evidence of volcanic ash, most of which may have been ice-coated (and therefore less damaging to the airplane) at the time of the encounter. Engine operating temperatures at the time of the encounter were sufficiently high to cause melting and fusing of ash on and inside high-pressure turbine blade cooling passages. There was no evidence of engine damage in the engine trending results, but some of the turbine blades had been operating partially uncooled and may have had a remaining lifetime of as little as 100 hr. There are currently no fully reliable methods available to flight crews to detect the presence of a diffuse, yet potentially damaging volcanic ash cloud.
Centralized government strikes again. The EUwwww is going to give the people of Europe a ride for their money.
So, the MET office erred on the side of caution, and they are idiots for being careful.
Had the ban NOT gone into effect, and ONE aircraft had lost its engines, the same cry-babies who are snivelling about the shutdown would be screaming about malfeasance and greed, profits over safety, and all the rest of the anti-business drivel spewed by the ignorance and class-warfare brigade.
The MET office made the correct choice, since nobody was hurt.