Iceland's Volcano

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So, news in America is hampered by the 'Us first' filter, but I do seem to remember seeing something about a volcano going off in Iceland and shutting down all air travel in northern Europe, wreaking havok with international trade and business, stranding people without money, and generally mussing things up. Any first-hand reports? Any reactions?

Moreover, likely because of the aforementioned filter problem, I've only seen this issue mentioned in relation to air delays. I've seen no mention of how Iceland is handling the volcano (though I understand it's in a rather remote region of the island) or what dangers anyone expects as the ash comes down.

 

"Hampered by US first filter"? I thought the coverage was pretty good thus far -- but then I get most of my news from papers, the internet and radio.

 

Well, to be honest it hasn't gotten very massive coverage around here either. All airtravel has been grounded for the last few days and people are stranded everywhere but it has only affected airtravel as far as I know. I think the traffic problems caused by the severe and snowy winter got as much if not more coverage. It is no big deal as I understand it is just risky to fly if your end plane ends up in one of those clouds.

 

Yeah, flying through the ashes would end badly. I'm wondering if there have been any projections of problems when the ash comes down?

 

It's been the leading story on the news pretty much every day since it happened. I'd love to say this is because, as an island nation, we're now isolated apart from a few ferries. But really I think the media is just being lazy. There's rarely any new news, just new interviews with people stuck here and making the most of it. The Harlem Globetrotters gave a great interview, really friendly.

They've said that there isn't expected to be any great health risk above the normal we get from pollution. The problem with the planes is caused by their engines sucking in air containing the ash. The sand becomes really hot as it's thrown around the engine and starts to corrode it.

 

A few years ago a plane flew through a cloud of volcanic ash and fell several thousand feet as it clogged the engines. The pilot managed to re-start the engine before hitting the ground. Hence the ban on air travel at the moment.

Mum is spitting blood as she works in an airport and put in 2 days leave but because of the ash she would have been off anyway! Also, my sistrer is training on check in at the same airport and has pretty much had the week off because of this. The flight ban is supposed to be lifted at 1pm BST today but we'll see.
A taxi company in Northampton was paid about £1200 the other day to drive some business men to Geneva as they couldn't get a flight!

 

Our client the I work as an on-site at is having hissy fits over this. I have alot of goods stock at Heathrow right now that they need desperately. what a PITA! I am gettng phone calls non-stop about projected ETAs of their goods. Not that I don't get calls/emails all-day everyday, but it is becoming overbearing.

 

Air space is re-opening tommorrow starting with Scotland at 7am and working its way down. However, there aren't that many planes in the UK right now so it's going to take a while to get back to normal!
Mum and sis are on-call to go in tomorrow and I've been asked to stay free too as I used to work at the airport too! This is gonna be fun

 

Overall, I thought the coverage has been decent. MSNBC had a bunch of pictures up, and really, besides the big clouds of ash and the fact that all air traffic has been grounded, what else is there to report? After reading a story or two, I didn't feel like I had any unanswered questions...

 

A few days without chemtrails does wonders for the mind

 

Its going to cause havok for GCSE students who have been away last week.

the navy are supposedly getting involved to help ship people home.

I find it quite entertaining though that pilots have come along and simply said "we could fly under the cloud"

 

The priority for the navy is going to be the guys that are supposed to be going to or coming back from the middle east...holiday goers are going to be bottom of the list.

Another cloud has come through as well. My sister's getting really narked now, she won't finish her training until she's 90 at this rate!

 

They could fly under it but as I understand the situation they don't really know exactly where and at which altitude the cloud is. Doesn't show up on radar and such. If they knew exactly where it was it would be no problem to fly around, above or below it but they don't.

 

Here's what I don't get. I understand that you don't know exactly where the ash cloud is. From all the reports I've seen, it seems like all air traffic in Europe was shut down, even in France and Germany. Wouldn't in be possible to take a more southernly route and avoid it completely? Maybe that's not practical for trans-Atlantic flights as it would require too much fuel, but all flights to points south (like Africa, Middle East, etc.), shouldn't be a problem. I understand they don't know exactly where it is, but they have a ballpark estimate. Just go considerably further south than that, and you should be in the clear.

Also it appears the other volcano is going to erupt soon too. We'll need to change the thread name to Iceland's Volcanos.

 

They DO know where the cloud is -- it's visible on satelite imaging. The problem is the concentration at 20,000 feet is disruptive to aircraft (and 20,000 feet is low for a large jet). The cloud is simply huge and is covering about half of western europe; a more southernly path is possible for some areas (Spain and Italy) but many of the European countries are already blanketed by the cloud and would have to fly through it -- even going south.

 

We had some soldiers coming back from Afghanistan today -- they were slated to be routed through a base in Germany, but instead they were routed through Portugal, thanks to the cloud. Hey, at least they made it home.

 

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

Link to lots of pictures pertaining to the volcano in Iceland

 

some of those photo's are brilliant