“We sent ten Boeing 747 and Airbus 340 jets on transfer flights from Munich to Frankfurt,” Lufthansa spokesman Klaus Walther told the paper. The planes were moved in order to be in the most useful place once the ban is lifted, he explained.
“Our machines flew to a height of 24,000 feet, or around 8,000 metres. In Frankfurt the machines were examined by our technicians. They didn’t find the slightest scratch on the cockpit windscreens, on the outer skin nor in the engines.”
“The flight ban, which is completely based on computer calculations, is causing economic damage in the billions. This is why, for the future, we demand that dependable measurements must be available before a flight ban is imposed.”
Source: “the Local”
At left: the model from the Met Office used to look at dispersion.
The Nuclear Accident Model (NAME) was originally developed after the nuclear accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, which highlighted the need for a capability to predict the spread and deposition of radioactive material released into the atmosphere. The model has continued to be developed and is now applied to a wide range of atmospheric pollution problems, ranging from emergency responses to daily air-quality forecasts.
Over the years, NAME has been applied to a number of atmospheric releases, including radioactive releases, the Kuwaiti oil fires, major industrial fires and chemical spills, and two major volcanic eruptions that occurred in Iceland. Both of these eruptions resulted in aircraft having to be re-routed to avoid potentially dangerous ash clouds. An example of the volcanic ash guidance provided to the aviation community is shown in Figure 1.
Source: NWP Gazette
Here is what Professor Jerom Ravetz of Oxford has to say about the issue (via email):
Interim contribution to the Post-Normal Science debate.
Considering the effects of the Icelandic volcano on air transport, we seem to have:
- Facts Uncertain: how thin must the dust be, for it to be safe enough for flying?
- Values in Dispute: Regulators wanting safety at all costs, others needing to get flying now.
- Stakes High: Crippling costs to industry, versus big risks to aircraft and people.
- Decisions Urgent: Every day the immediate costs mount, and the long-term costs grow.
Is this analysis an invitation to scientists to cheat? Some of my critics would say so, and perhaps even some of my supporters as well!
h/t to WUWT readers Nigel Brereton and Bernd Felsche
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267257/Iceland-volcano-eruption-UK-flight-ban-LIFTED-tomorrow.html
Giovanni Bisignani, director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘This is a European embarrassment and it’s a European mess. It took five days to organise a conference call with the ministers of transport.’
‘Europeans are still using a system that’s based on a theoretical model, instead of taking a decision based on facts and risk assessment.’
‘This decision (to close airspace) has to be based on facts and supported by risk assessment. We need to replace this blanket approach with a practical approach.’
enneagram (08:19:28) :
Unless Ravetz actually makes some kind of transparent recommendations before the crisis is resolved, it would be difficult to know how or if PNS can make valid contribution to such issues. Perhaps he’ll make his considered recommendations here first!
Personally I wouldn’t want to fly through any of that ash – or in a plane that had flown through it. But I might be persuaded to fly if a very transparent test were done for “my benefit”. I don’t see an alternative to test flights in the sensitive air space. Clear a runway, man it with the necessary emergency crews, then send a passenger jet aloft to circle in a given density of ash (measurement methods by cubic air volume as suggested above) until his engines either conk out or run short of fuel. Assuming that glider landings of the Chesley Sullenberger variety are not absurdly difficult, some pilots would probably agree to this for a price. Then do analyses of the jet engines, windscreens, etc. Ravetz’s PNS anecdote about the Hoof and Mouth Disease was largely a crisis of public confidence, and the tendency there to overreact. Not knowing the risk is the main problem.
As blunt as the above method may sound, it would be one way of gaining crucial flight data with a passenger / freight airliner.
Rob (10:01:09) :
“A BA 747 from Kuala Lumpur to Perth went through a cloud of volcanic ash from Java’s Galunggung volcano. There are several incidents where inflight loss of power has occured from volcanic clouds. Shortly after the BA incident, a SQ 747 returned to Singapore after losing two engines. In 1989 a KL 747 lost all four after Alaska’s Mount Redoubt erupted. These all were clearly tied back to the volcanic ash and the havoc they play on engines, windscreens, and the airframe in general. Certainly different from the TWA incident, though just as tense for the crew.”
You are not going to be able to avoid incidents where an eruption takes place (starts) close to a flight path, i.e. a close event takes place with a plane in flight, and they are flying through the plume. Those cases you mentioned are quite different from the current situation where the planes are thousands of miles away and the ash very dispersed.
Vanuata rocks.
Rocking & rolling & rumbling with Gaia, er Gaua.
“Last year it was just some explosions and some ash falling but at the moment the activity is becoming more interesting,” Korisa said.”
Shake it.
…-
“Vanuatu prepares to evacuate 3,000 from rumbling volcano
The Pacific nation of Vanuatu has made plans to evacuate nearly 3,000 villagers after a highly active volcano started spewing ash clouds, an official said on Monday.
The picturesque Gaua volcano, which has erupted 13 times since 1963 and has been exploding and rumbling for several months, is under close watch after a marked rise in activity in recent days.”
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Vanuatu_prepares_to_evacuate_3000_from_rumbling_volcano_999.html
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
Lava is shooting for the first time from Iceland’s erupting volcano and the ash cloud has dramatically reduced, a helicopter pilot told AFP on Monday after flying over the crater.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=TX-PAR-OFJ92&show_article=1
Hence, flights may able to resume with safety.
Burocrats at the highest level were choosen to be there because they acted upon and helped formulating the rules of the organisation . A real career-burocrat will steer away from any risk that is dangerous for his position . He will never be inclined to bring his organisation or human society forward and will cling to his personal interests and act upon the rules set in his organisation , so what is to be expected ? Yes , better be safe than sorry . The wielding of power to this type of people is a mayor error in the first place . The airline itself should be responsible for its behaviour and will take all prudence in the world to prevent a disaster as the penalty on a mistake from their side would be huge . What was the story with Panam in the past ?
And now the europeans are accepting to be bullied by a couple of megalomaniac burocrats ? Who is responsible when an airline – engine is winding down faster than planned ? The operator or the manufacurer but not the burocrat . Something is very wrong in our european community and the smell of our own smokestack is disgusting towards heaven .
So called post normal science is nothing but a renaming of the process that mankind has always used. In general, we do not completely understand most things happening around us. Science can answer many simplified questions if enough information is available, but the real world is generally not simple. For example we now know plate motion causes earthquakes and volcanoes, but we do not have enough details or understanding to predict them. We also know that an asteroid will likely hit the Earth and do a lot of damage at some time in the future. We just don’t have any details. Driving has a significant chance of resulting in an accident, but we drive anyway. The key to addressing all of these and other issues is to weigh risk the best we can, and consider a cost/benefit analysis. Calling this post normal science is just relabeling that. In the end we strive to maximize the understanding (science) to minimize the risk. Playing with words is of little added benefit.
A world government would have prohibited flights all over the world. If the EU would not exist there would not have been a generalized flights ban, as every country would have used its own model software or its own idependent criteria.
As always, communism does not work.
Those airlines quite happily use the model predictions for their winds aloft forecasts for their flight plans. Similar model plots were shown on here for the Alaskan and Kamchatkan volcanoes over the last few years and their data used by the airlines, it’s a bit tougher when the ash cloud drifts over a major air traffic area such as western europe.
Are there not satellites over there any more? Infrared sensing would work.
James Delingpole: “I suggest we ground all passenger aircraft forever. On the Precautionary Principle”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100035261/why-the-precautionary-principle-always-works/
Thanks everybody; I just thought I would have a bit of fun, provoking my critics about PNS. I suspect that the item about Prof. Schnellerflugzoeg (? -zeug) is a spoof – sorry to disappoint people. This could make a great case study in the problems of regulating risk: a non-zero threshold is not ‘safe’ or ‘acceptable’, but a zero threshold is nonsense (see Scientistfortruth). Also, what to when the relevant science has been neglected, and all we have are Models. And when damage from ash might not be obvious, so just sending some planes up and seeing if they stay up is not a real test. And of course, all the distortions from incompetent bureaucracies – but would we rather have no regulation at all? What a great forum WUWT is, invective and all!
artwest
“Airlines, to say the least, have not always put passenger safety first when money is at stake so the general public would not be unwise to treat their views with some suspicion, even if they might happen to be right in this instance.”
Puh-lease. No airline would choose to compromise customer (not to mention pilot or aircraft) safety. The fact that the CEO of British Airways was along for the ride on a BA test flight demonstrates more than any other act that the airlines truly believe the risk is minimal or non-existent.
Just for the record, in Germany on Friday it all got shut down after post-normal scientific warnings from british computer modelers. No test flights were undertaken in Germany. On Sunday, some ash particles were found in a bucket in a weather station at Wendelstein.
On Monday late afternoon some researchers from Oberpfaffenhofen, from the DLR, undertook a flight with an instrumented plane. They don’t work on weekends.
To me it looks like an exercise in maximizing uncertainty for travelers and companies. Well, and the more uncertain the situation is, the more we need PNS, right? Sort of like a post-normal chain reaction… Superpower Europe turned post-normal.
This was so obviously a massive overreaction from the start I am surprised that there was no more criticism.
We do not value lives over money.
However, please remember that a healthy economy is a great way to save lives!
>>No airline would choose to compromise customer (not to
>>mention pilot or aircraft) safety.
Pur-lease, to you too.
Why do you think they call aviation ‘Tombstone Engineering’. — because nothing ever changes, until someone dies.
Why do you think Concord was still flying after suffering many tyre blowouts and fuel tank penetrations (until one caught fire).
Why do you think the older 737s are still flying with only one rudder actuator (PCU), despite this failure mode ending up with several aircraft doing barrel-rolls and diving into the ground. They just make the pilots fly a little faster now, as they say this stops the aircraft turning upside down.
But we never compromise safety….
.
ScientistForTruth (09:04:31) :
(….)
The paper by Przedpelski and Casadevall states:
“The greatest threat to aircraft and engines is presented by “new” clouds (within hours of eruption) that contain large concentrations of ash particles…The ash particle size distribution in volcanic eruption clouds should be documented. In addition, engine and (or) combustor tests should be sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish threshold values for “safe” levels of ash concentration and the “safe” range of combustor temperature. This information, combined with updated dispersion and theoretical fallout models (and with improved cloud tracking) can establish when an ash cloud ceases to be a flight hazard. These efforts will enhance aviation safety and reduce air traffic delays resulting from volcanic activity.”
—————————
Reply:
You’d think if our weather service can tune Doppler radar to determine the concentration and form of water in storms, they’d be able to do the same with clouds of volcanic ash. With some practice, they might even be able to predict how much “Icelandic cloudy” piles up on your driveway tomorrow, or the amount that goes through the jets on your trans-Atlantic flight.
Likely hoax.
This guy’s name: Helmut Schnellerflugzoeg
means “faster airplane” in German with a single letter letter change (change o to u in “zoeg”)
If I were in charge, I would have used the models to tell me where to test.
Also the safety/flight critical stuff in Europe is way different than it is here. I believe that the companies are held libel regardless of what the regulatory agency says.
The BBC are being really weird about this issue – They are amazingly pro European Council (who have been exposed for what they are) and massively pro global warming.
Been watching their weather reports and they are SO pathetic. This is one of the major weather events of our lifetime and they arent even mentioning it.
@ur momisugly chris gray (09:08:08) :
The nub of the problem…
I would say, fly them until they don’t stay there. That is the only scientific test that will yield valid results that can be used to show real tolerances. This assumes they can get the planes back in a piece for analysis, and also know what density and type of material they flew through.
To find out if planes tolerated mach speeds, they flew them faster until they failed.
What test would you propose?
ScientistForTruth (08:05:13) :
A quick read through the ICAO document reveals what ICAO means by detectable: Visible to the eye or visible on a satellite picture.
With volcanoes more or less active all the time, there is probably some traces of ash present most of the time. Invisible to the eye and the satellites.
Here’s my post-normal analysis of the problem:
Facts Uncertain: How best to hide the fact that models are wrong? Denial, cover-up or asserting the models are essentially correct, but need tweaking?
Values in Dispute: Will saying it’s safe to fly get more funding than dire warnings of doom if the airlines presume their flights?
Stakes High: If people figure out these models are wrong, how much sooner will most of them realize the climate models are also wrong? Mucho government funding is at risk.
Decisions Urgent: The sooner we cover up the fact that we’re wrong, the less chance more people will figure it out. How do we defuse this ASAP?