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Digging in the ash pit
Missed opportunities
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Catriona Wells Thursday 22 April 2010 |
The more you dig, the more you find out. I had naively assumed that this volcanic eruption took the aviation world by surprise and that the confusion was a justifiable consequence of that surprise. What I did not know was that the airline industry and its regulators have been discussing safe operating limits in volcanic ash conditions since at least 2008 and probably way before that.
Attempts were made to agree a safe level of ash contamination at the ICAO meeting in Paris in 2008 but these were hindered by a ‘lack of positive cooperation’ between the industry and the World Meteorological Organisation. IATA, it seems, even has a standing committee on volcanoes and it was due to report at a meeting in Peru last month. Apparently, this did not happen because of a ‘lack of industry representation’.
One assumes that, by the date of the next meeting, there will be no shortage of reports or active cooperation.
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Dave Jenkins, Birmingham 28 April 2010, 07:33PM | |
Me, my wife and kids got caught up in Orlando and had to stay over in the hotel. That bit was ok because Virgin just covered it but i got grief for being late getting back to work and jobs are not that easy to find in this area. If they all knew about these volcanoes, why did they not have a plan so they they could get round them? | |
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Kate Jenkins, Scotland 29 April 2010, 04:25AM | |
This sounds about right to me. Meetings in Paris and Peru and probably lots of other exotic places and they they still did not have the stuff ready. So, on to the next meeting and I bet they stayed in nice hotels and got to eat well. They probably thought it would never happen. | |
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Len Vanger, Reading, UK 29 April 2010, 12:42PM | |
I see that you cannot plan for every eventuality but it is obvious that volcanoes can happen and we should have been better prepared for this. Engineers will know how much and how big the bits of soot and ash can be before they are dangerous and we should have been able to decide if it was safe. Having said that, I think the authorities were right to play safe. | |
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Mrs Peters, Isle of Whight 1 May 2010, 12:56PM | |
My first reaction is that this is just the blame culture. It went wrong so let us blame someone. But, then I think that these people who are employed to plan and think about solutions really ought to have done their job better. | |
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Ms Morely, Bath 1 May 2010, 07:23PM | |
I bet there are a few red faces in the so called standing committee. I wonder if anyone has got sacked - I bet the answer is no. | |
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Marion Blunket, Nottingham 4 May 2010, 12:47PM | |
The fact that we have had to close the airports again in Ireland today shows that despite all the talk about over-reaction we still do not know enough about whether it is safe or not. You cannot blame people for not being able to make a decision if they do not know what the decision should be. | |
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