Volcanic Ash Cloud - An Overreaction?

[Exile]

You told me you'd spent all your Euro's on a Romanian lady of the pole called Mindy.

Anyway, surprised noone pointed out the misake in the first post. Predator UAVs and Airliners don't have the same propulsion system.

Ahem. Yeah, well that was due to the ash cloud. Honest.

Over 40 years after sending rockets to the moon, it took us 6 days and a flight ban to figure out that it was safe to fly through an ash cloud?

How long did NASA have to plan those trips, I don't know but I'll bet it was a bit more than a few days!

Conducting tests, and actually agreeing to a resolution in just 6 days when you have to make a decision that affects millions of lives and billions of Dollars is very good work in my eyes - I'd hate to make such a rushed conclusion, especially when getting it wrong could kill.

 

[Fisz]

The whole thing is like a madman's equation. If the authorities take a "safety first" approach - everyone's pissed off, if they don't and planes begin to fall from the skies - everyone will blame them too. Since Eyjafjoll usually precedes a bigger eruption from the Katla volcano by about 6 months I think that it's better they start putting contingency plans into effect now because when Katla goes it might send the european economy and society back into 1920s.

 

[goldenelite0]

Predator UAVs and Airliners don't have the same propulsion system.

Irrelevant, turbo props are almost mini jet engines. This is why all the prop planes weren't flying, even the helicopters (turbo shaft) were grounded.

The only thing that could fly is old WW2 era planes. The cylinder engines apparently is more like a car and doesn't heat up as much. I only heard this from someone else so don't shoot me down if it's wrong.

 

[DJForbes]

ok so its costing millions of pounds a day to keep them grounded.

however look at it this way.

if this was your car and you drove into this thing that damages your car and you crash and get seriously injured then find out the goverment new there was risks. you would be asking the goverment for compensation.

now take an air liner. if it crashes full of pansangers it would take a tun of lives and cost the airline billions in claims.

Goverment has done the right thing. no questions about it

 

[agge]

There were no over reaction. Im an airline pilot flying for one of the bigger airlines in europe so trust me on this one.
The authorities in europe had never experienced anything like this and hade little plans and knowledge of the upcoming situation. They knew however (as do all airline pilots) that ash could, as many of you correctly have pointed out, become glass inside the engines, making them stop in midair. With this limited knowledge they did the only right thing at the time, shut down the airspace until they worked out what the hech was going on. For a couple of days they then together with the airlines and all available expertise worked out a plan to get us flying again. What they found out was that the ashcloud that shut down europe wasnt as thick as they initially thought in some areas and so they went from having two levels, closed and open skies to dividing the airspace into 3 levels, the closed, open and the new level 2 in which you are allowed to fly if you follow certain guidelines. Those guidelines being for example an extra inspection of the engines after 3 hours flight in the level 2 airmass etc. And thats where were at today. In sweden were flying in level 2 ashclouds today, i believe in the rest of europe the skies are clear.
So all in all, the authorities did the only thing they could do, safety first until they had worked it all out. One could argue though that they should have had a plan for this waiting to be implemented, volcanoes are not exactly a new thing are they?!

For the ones saying we can fly under it. No, we cant. The air is much thicker down there and so the engines use a lot more fuel, meaning you would have to fuel maybe twice on a flight from london to rome, making the tickets ridiculously expensive.

Buddha 3, u have a lot of knowledge, u work in the industry?
The Turkish plane didnt fal out of the sky due to the pitot tubes, it was the radio altimeter telling the plane it was on ground so the automatic landing system thought it landed and hence retarded the throttles, making the aircraft lose speed and stall. A simple error which im sure happens every now and then but the problem was the pilots didnt catch it until it was to late. A sad story of human error combined with techology failing...

 

[Buddha 3]

Buddha 3, u have a lot of knowledge, u work in the industry?
The Turkish plane didnt fal out of the sky due to the pitot tubes, it was the radio altimeter telling the plane it was on ground so the automatic landing system thought it landed and hence retarded the throttles, making the aircraft lose speed and stall. A simple error which im sure happens every now and then but the problem was the pilots didnt catch it until it was to late. A sad story of human error combined with techology failing...

Don't work in the industry mate, but I have worked at Schiphol Airport in the past, before I became fully self employed.
You are right about the Turkish Airlines 737, my bad. Wasn't it the Air France jet that vanished over the Atlantic recently where they suspect the pitot tubes might have been fouled?