How can further volcano-related travel chaos be avoided?
Posted on June 1st, 2010 in General
During the recent travel chaos caused by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud, many stranded airline passengers and holidaymakers had to make their way home across the continent by any means possible. Airlines lost tens of millions of euro, and airports were turned into near ghost towns for days on end.
Why was the ash cloud dangerous?
The main danger of the ash cloud centred on two things:
- The reduced visibility caused by the ash made it near impossible for pilots to fly safely
- Once a plane tried to fly through it, the ash would turn to molten glass inside the plane’s engine, crippling it and forcing it to crash.
What can be done in future?
The next step for the aviation industry is to create a workable plan, to avoid the travel chaos witnessed in the last month or two. Several suggestions have been put forward.
1. Flying under the ash cloud.
Several European airlines, keen to get flights back in the air, have conducted test flights at lower altitude, with apparent success.
There are a number of problems with this however:
- The amount of fuel needed to fly at a lower altitude (where the air is thicker) would be beyond the capacity of most airlines, particularly for long haul flights.
- At lower altitudes, the air contains a high number of fine particles, which planes should avoid.
- There is no altitude level at which planes would be guaranteed to avoid the ash.
2. Flying around the ash cloud.
This technically would work, but the main issue with this is that the ash cloud cannot actually be seen. Satellite imaging, which the airlines rely on, can only show dense ash, and there is no way to judge the altitude it is at.
3. Lidar.
Lidar is a similar type system to radar, which can be successfully used to map the layers of ash around at different heights in the atmosphere. Using this, pilots could plot a safe path through ash-free airspace.
The problem with this is that the course of the flight would be taken out of the hands of air traffic control, and given solely to the pilot. The chances of two planes taking the same flight-path and colliding would increase dramatically.
Probably the best solution, according to Richard Taylor of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), would be for manufacturers to change the structure of their engines, so as to be able to withstand the ash coming in.
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