Clouds of unknowing

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull Volcano takes on Europe, wreaks havoc. BRENDAN GALLAGHER takes on the ash cloud.

As these words are written, the Icelandic volcano continues to interfere with air traffic across Europe nearly a month after it first erupted. Fortunately, there has been no repetition of the initial system-wide airspace shutdown, and the leading airline bosses and other Monday-morning quarterbacks who sounded off against the flight bans have piped down.

The chief executives who lambasted the European CAAs and air traffic service providers ought to have known better. Sure, the cancellations hurt them financially at a time when they could have done without yet another blow to the viability of their businesses. But their actions, including stunt “test flights” into the ash clouds, called into question a deeply ingrained culture that has made air travel safer than a trip down the freeway.

The world’s best airlines cherish safety, of course they do. But if you are a CAA or an ATS provider, safety is your business – it’s your reason for being. Last month the European authorities were confronted by a volcanic ash problem unprecedented in its scale and complexity. At the same time, they lacked anything like the full hand of information they needed as the basis for a decision that was both fast and responsible.

What they did know gave them very reason for caution. They knew that ash can bring down airliners – in 1982 a British Airways 747 descended powerless from 36,000ft to 12,500ft before its engines were relit, and then made an emergency landing with the pilots peering through an ash-blasted windscreen. They knew that Finnish Air Force fighters flying in the Icelandic cloud returned with ash effectively welded to the interior of their engines.

What they didn’t know with any precision was the three-dimensional shape of the ever-shifting cloud. Nor did they have any authoritative guidance on the ash density that could be safely tolerated – there’s no standard and the International Civil Aviation Organization simply advises operators to avoid any possibility of contamination.

Unofficially, the leading engine manufacturers say that their products can tolerate ash levels of below 17g per cubic meter of air. Last month the British CAA led a move towards accepting a maximum of 16g, and now operations are proceeding on that basis. So much for the authorities lacking flexibility.

What they couldn’t do, though, was respond to calls for the quick-reaction opening of localized air corridors in response to sudden changes in the conditions. Setting aside the challenges this would have presented to passengers trying to get to airports at short notice, the notion was completely ruled out by the inflexibility of Europe’s nationally based air traffic management system. With luck, that may not be the case for too much longer.

The air traffic paralysis in Europe has yielded some clear lessons. The ad hoc figure for tolerable ash density needs to be quickly firmed up into an international standard. There are improvements to be made to satellite sensors and the mathematical modeling of ash clouds. And the management of incidents should surely benefit from the accelerated introduction of the Single Europe Sky, as now proposed by the continent’s transport ministers.

I’m a trade journalist. If I make a mistake, an irate letter or two is written to the editor, a correction is published and the waters duly close over the matter. If an air safety regulator slips up, the waters might just close over an A380 and all who fly in her. It’s time to cut the authorities some slack and give them time to learn the lessons and rewrite the book. Then, if another volcano blows and the outcome is handled no better, the quarterbacks will be entitled to have their say.