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Recent Icelandic Volcanic Eruption Shuts down UK Airspace
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I just checked the flight plan. We are flying from FRA via France (south of the UK) then over the North Atlantic to a waypoint called "VIXUN" and then pretty much direct to ORD. A little detour Compared to the Great Circle distance we fly a detour of roughly 200NM due to the Vulcanic Ashcloud.
Belgium issued a NOTAM as well for a forecasted Ashcloud.
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Originally posted by WILCO737 View PostI just checked the flight plan. We are flying from FRA via France (south of the UK) then over the North Atlantic to a waypoint called "VIXUN" and then pretty much direct to ORD. A little detour Compared to the Great Circle distance we fly a detour of roughly 200NM due to the Vulcanic Ashcloud.
Belgium issued a NOTAM as well for a forecasted Ashcloud.David Spalton
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BBC did some oncamera interviews with stranded passengers. One Scottish guy with a VERY thick accent appeared to be stumpted. He said the planes fly far above the cloud, so why should flights be canceled? Apparently a few years ago a plane was totally crippled when flown into the ash of an Indonesian earthquake. The British regulators didn't want a replay of that. But if cruising altitude is well above 30k and the ash rises to 20k, how does that shut down trans-Atlantic travel? They graphed where the winds were carrying the cloud. Given that flight plans follow the earth's curvature, it would seem to me a lot of flights would pass north of Iceland, north of the ash cloud. I remember our Air France flight arrived in America above Newfoundland or Labrador and skirted the coast down to JFK. Nothin in that flight path would have put us in the way of that cloud.
I do see a problem landing in UK. You have to descend into the airports through the altitude where the ask is. Isn't it likely that flights from Scandinavia would only be canceled if bound for UK airports? Could stranded passengers take a train to the continent and to an airport that wasn't hampered by the cloud? I guess this is the payoff for people who didn't cheap out on trip interruption insurance.
And, oh for a shipline to bail out to. But as in the past, capitalism has marginalized everything that wasn't fast and cheap. Consumers pretty much did this to themselves.
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I live under some of the busiest airspace in Europe. We see arrivals and departures from Manchester, Liverpool, Hawarden, Birmingham, East Mids and Blackpool plus high level traffic including a constant stream of trans-Atlantic flights. Whenever you look up you see at least one plane. Not today, not one all day.!!
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Originally posted by EconomyClass View PostBBC did some oncamera interviews with stranded passengers. One Scottish guy with a VERY thick accent appeared to be stumpted. He said the planes fly far above the cloud, so why should flights be canceled? Apparently a few years ago a plane was totally crippled when flown into the ash of an Indonesian earthquake. The British regulators didn't want a replay of that. But if cruising altitude is well above 30k and the ash rises to 20k, how does that shut down trans-Atlantic travel? They graphed where the winds were carrying the cloud. Given that flight plans follow the earth's curvature, it would seem to me a lot of flights would pass north of Iceland, north of the ash cloud. I remember our Air France flight arrived in America above Newfoundland or Labrador and skirted the coast down to JFK. Nothin in that flight path would have put us in the way of that cloud.
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was cruising at 36,000 feet. Just because they think most of this ash is at 20,000 feet doesn't mean that the volcanic ash cannot gain much greater altitudes (hundreds of thousands of feet depending on the eruption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_column)
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Originally posted by cja View PostI live under some of the busiest airspace in Europe. We see arrivals and departures from Manchester, Liverpool, Hawarden, Birmingham, East Mids and Blackpool plus high level traffic including a constant stream of trans-Atlantic flights. Whenever you look up you see at least one plane. Not today, not one all day.!!
Sure a lot of natural calamities this year. Apparrently something on this order in Iceland hasn't happened in a long time.
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Airports in Northern Germany are all closed (Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover Berlin,Düsseldorf), Frankfurt has reduced traffic, flights to Northern Europe, UK or the US are cancelled. Flights from Asia are still scheduled, so Thai and Singapore are on their way to FRA, also some flights from Middle East and Arabia (LH6xx). Ash cloud will be expected for around 6:00 over FRA, so probably FRA will be closed, also airports in Southern Germany.
I got up at 4:30 and walked the dog, I couldn't see any airplane, neither approaching FRA (RWY07 in use) over my house nor passing FRA in higher flight levels to / from AMS / CDG / LHR. It is pretty quiet this morning.
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