Iceland’s Volcanic Ash halts Newquay flights
Volcanic ash drifting across the UK from an eruption in Iceland has caused the National Air Traffic Service (Nats) to ban all flights in controlled UK airspace, apart from emergencies, from midday to day 15-04-2010 until at least tomorrow.
This has affected flights from Newquay Airport in that at least seven out of the day’s 17 flights, going to the likes of London Gatwick, Newcastle and Dublin, have been cancelled.
The ash comes from a volcano under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland about 75 miles east of Reykjavik which has been asleep for nearly 200 years.
The eruption is the second in the country in less than a month and caused local authorities to evacuate over 800 residents from around the glacier as rivers rose by up to 10 feet. This second eruption however has been 10 to 20 times more powerful than the first.
Volcanic ash is very hazardous to aircraft. Visibility is obviously a problem but also the ash is finer than talcum powder and ash dust entering engines can cause partial or total engine power loss. The ash can also damage aircraft ventilation, hydraulic, electronic and air data systems.
Hopes are that this plume of ash will soon disperse and flights can resume but volcanoes are very unpredictable and a bigger worry is that a blast from another much larger volcano Katla, which is located under the vast Myrdalsjokull ice cap, is also well overdue.
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