back to article Icelandic ash cloud to keep UK skies closed 'til Saturday

UK air-traffic authorities have confirmed that flights will remain grounded until at least the early hours of Saturday morning as dangerous ash clouds from an Icelandic volcano continue to blanket the nation. Volcanic ash graphic 16 April 2010. Credit: London VAAC Pesky volcano. The National Air Traffic Service (NATS), …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Don 8
    Coat

    Ad campaign or cry for help?

    Looking at the red outline on the dispersal graphics I am undecided whether this is an ad campaign for London 2012 or a call for new shoes from Björk.

    I'll take the one with the ash on the shoulders please.

  2. Rogan Paneer

    My theory ...

    My theory is that this was actually part of Björk's next music video, but has somehow got totally out of control.

  3. Badbob
    Unhappy

    Bring back the airyplanes!

    If only so that I can get on with my job on the railway, without the constant stream of bloody Virgin Trains getting in my way. There has been a lot of extra traffic on my stretch of railway, so much so, that planned renewals jobs are being cancelled for Saturday night/Sunday morning. Presumably to allow trains to run later and earlier (West Coast Line is normally completely shut down on Sat night/Sun morn).

    Working on the railway would be much easier without trains.

    I am already preparing my excuses for Fault Control about it being the wrong type of ash. :-)

  4. Aron
    WTF?

    Another anti-scientific hysteria

    So we've got sunny, clear, cloudless skies and not a trace of this magically dangerous ash cloud anywhere to be seen and yet we've caused billions of pounds worth of damage to the economies relying on flights to and from London, including our own bankrupt economy!

    The state of science and the media these days is so bad it wants and sometimes causes everything to get shut down over baseless fears.

    Everything that could be hypothesised here about ash turning to glass inside turbines is nonsense. There simply isn't enough ash up there, the amount if not dense enough, it's not at the right altitude for most flights, and flights would only be affected for a fraction of their journey time. And I mean a very small fraction!

  5. gautam
    Paris Hilton

    Nuke it!

    Why cant we just NUke the volcano, so at best it will wi.den the mouth and all ash/lava will be scattered locally. Better still it might just seal it off. the small spout is making it worse currently.

    Remember we did this in Iraq in first gulf war to put out the fires.

    Paris, cos she still burns bright

  6. Aron
    Coffee/keyboard

    Exactly as predicted

    Though my previous post has not turned up, it went something like this "The media and Met Office are still doing the dirty work of the anti-flight arm of the green lobby. We haven’t seen a sign of this ash cloud over us. We’ve had three days of absolutely clear, blue, cloudless skies over northern Europe and no sign of any ash or dust. Yet the hysteria over something that could not effect airplanes continues and behind it all are the same organisations as ever."

    Now we have this:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8628034.stm

    I figured out how bad the flawed science was myself using a bit of logic. How come the Met Office and the media with their millions of pounds can't figure it out.

    Test flights show no problems...the threat has been exaggerated by the Met Office, computer models, regulators and the media

  7. Stuart Halliday
    Happy

    Smelly here

    I went to visit Kirkcaldy up from Edinburgh on Saturday and boy did it smell of rotten eggs.

    This eastern town of Scotland has most of its car parks on the coast so as I drove in and got out I was hit by a strong smell of Sulphur dioxide.

    The smell followed us as we walked into the town centre but thankfully once indoors it seemed to fade away. :-)

    Really brought the whole thing into perspective!

    No ash on cars though. Well I had to look didn't I?

  8. NightFox
    Thumb Down

    Independence

    I'm sick of this country's reliance on other countries. Why can't we have our own volcano? UKIP would get my vote if they took this on.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Don't get your hopes up

    From the look of the jet stream:

    http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/jetstream.asp

    Things probably won't change much before the coming weekend. Maybe not even then.

  10. Frantisek Janak
    Thumb Up

    My title here

    Haha...I'm glad I'm heading to London by bus this coming Wednesday...one nil for us saving money!

  11. VulcanV5

    @ Aron "I solved it all myself"

    Hi Aron.

    Of course it's true, anyone with not the slightest knowledge of how aircraft engines work can solve this current difficulty "using a bit of logic".

    That everyone from the engine manufacturers themselves through to every regulatory and aviation services agency is flatly refusing to do so is because they all want European airports to lose £millions in usage rights and airlines already on the verge of going bust to now do exactly that.

    Every European Government is also very much in favour of this as the more businesses and the more jobs that are lost, the lower the tax take will be and the higher the unemplopyment benefits total.

    Even NATS itself, which -- as you, with your "little bit of logic" will know full well -- is financed thanks to fully operational airline traffic, has decided to eschew logic and let its coffers run dry.

    For the first time ever, UK and Western European airspace has been affected by a volcano that is venting through a glacier. It's a Doomsday scenario that not even the aviation industry itself foresaw.

    However, all of us involved in this current problem are most grateful to you for announcing that the exercise of a bit of your own logic brings an immediate resolution of the problem.

    I very much look forward to reading on here precisely which bit of that logic you're referring to -- seeing as how it is only "a bit", you will presumably have no problem at all in explaining it in a couple of sentences.

    Thank you again then, Aron, for your valued assistance.

    Your post has certainly convinced me that instead of continuing to work with aviation industry OEMs on this issue, I should recognise that you alone are the Whitney, and everyone else is a complete Pratt.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like