Daily Mail
Oops
The satellite images demonstrate that the skies were largely clear, which will not surprise the millions who enjoyed the fine, hot weather during the flight ban.
Jim McKenna, the Civil Aviation Authority’s head of airworthiness, strategy and policy, admitted: ‘It’s obvious that at the start of this crisis there was a lack of definitive data.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
how do you screw up in that kind of epic proportions?
don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical
Doctor Zhivago on April 26, 2010 at 2:25 PM
From DailyMail comments:
Did any flights pass thru the ‘ash cloud’ as a test? Military or otherwise? It seems like a missed opportunity to actually get some data/evidence of the threat that an ash cloud might pose.
Inanemergencydial on April 26, 2010 at 2:26 PM
It was all a put on so Obama could stay home and play golf.
Mark1971 on April 26, 2010 at 2:26 PM
What? The UK Met Office oversold the usefulness of their models?
Big, big surprise.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 2:26 PM
Weather/climate scientists who don’t pay attention to actual data? That’s gotta be a rare thing, right?
rbj on April 26, 2010 at 2:28 PM
Dang it! Mark1971 beat me to it.
ZeeMI on April 26, 2010 at 2:28 PM
NO worries, Obama will bail out the world. This is too big to fail.
Schadenfreude on April 26, 2010 at 2:29 PM
Are these computer models in any way related to the computer models that make Global Warming a ‘fact’? If they can’t even predict the path of a single ash cloud from a single volcano when they have all they could possibly want on the atmosphere, how do they expect us to believe they can predict the climate in 10 or 20 years?
bitsy on April 26, 2010 at 2:30 PM
the_nile on April 26, 2010 at 2:31 PM
*all the data they could
bitsy on April 26, 2010 at 2:31 PM
Global warming is real, though. The science is settled on that, believe you me.
Red Cloud on April 26, 2010 at 2:31 PM
There was definitely damage to military aircraft turbines during the eruption.
This is a tough call to make, but if a passenger aircraft had even been damaged there would have been lawsuits, to say nothing of a crash due to volcanic glass-clogged turbines. There’s a lot of unnecessary second-guessing going on here IMO.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 2:33 PM
So, how many people will they be firing, I wonder?
TheUnrepentantGeek on April 26, 2010 at 2:34 PM
As Ringo would say, it’s all a pigment of your imagination.
UltimateBob on April 26, 2010 at 2:34 PM
Since all the jet engines might not have failed the whole time, they should have gone for it?
exception on April 26, 2010 at 2:35 PM
Brought to you by the same people who control “Climate Change” data.
Enoxo on April 26, 2010 at 2:36 PM
also, can’t but help hear this remix when I see that headline
http://tinyurl.com/cuj9ac
Doctor Zhivago on April 26, 2010 at 2:36 PM
Yeah, there was no evidence of it on the GB or European radar, thought it was weird.
obladioblada on April 26, 2010 at 2:38 PM
You’ll have to show evidence of that.
That’s fine, then tell everyone that aircraft are being grounded simply to avoid lawsuits despite the fact that the weather predictors have no evidence to support a grounding.
I hope you understand the point now.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 2:38 PM
- “The Sky is falling”
- “The Earth is warming”
- “The economy is collapsing”
- “The food is unsafe”
- “The flu is coming”
Sane people are thinking – STFU !!!!
jake-the-goose on April 26, 2010 at 2:39 PM
The science is settled.
Daggett on April 26, 2010 at 2:40 PM
Eh, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry.
changer1701 on April 26, 2010 at 2:41 PM
“But our claims about global warming? Unimpeachable. Believe us. They’re sold. We think.”
amerpundit on April 26, 2010 at 2:41 PM
But the earth did warm by several degrees…didn’t it, well didn’t it?
right2bright on April 26, 2010 at 2:43 PM
Or correct, or accurate…the same dummies who made that mistake, also say determine when it is safe…when do you believe them?
right2bright on April 26, 2010 at 2:45 PM
Then maybe we should just keep flights grounded forever.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 2:46 PM
Nobody wants to talk to those dang aliens behind the clouds.
Hawking is right. If nobody talks to them they will go away.
maynila on April 26, 2010 at 2:46 PM
That’s what I tell the voices in my head.
lorien1973 on April 26, 2010 at 2:49 PM
Let’s just hope that when Katla blows later this year, this false alarm (if it was a false alarm) makes the European aviation authorities more accurate, not merely more reticent.
Fabozz on April 26, 2010 at 2:49 PM
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_516471.html
We already know what the wrost case scenario is in a grounding – you saw it last week. You understand what the worst-case scenario is in full flight ops, don’t you? Ash damage has imperiled numerous aircraft before, two of which were Boeing 747s that suffered compressor stalls in all four nacelles.
You DON’T put yourself in harm’s way when there is a risk, even a small risk, of this magnitude.
If there was a crash due to this, and that may well have been a possibility, there would have been hell to pay.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 2:50 PM
What a beautiful straw man. Why would we keep flights grounded forever? Finish off your argument.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 2:51 PM
Thanks for the link. Volcanic ash glassifying in the interior of a jet engine while in flight seems like a credible risk to me.
Inanemergencydial on April 26, 2010 at 2:53 PM
Couldn’t they have taken actual air samples for analysis via weather balloons? Seems like there are better methods of forecasting than: 1) send up a plane and see if it crashes; or 2) fire up somebody’s jazzy computer simulation.
jwolf on April 26, 2010 at 2:56 PM
Again, then be honest about why your grounding flights. Tell everyone that the Met Office has no clue where the ash concentrations are, but that we are grounding everything to avoid the “hell to pay.”
blink on April 26, 2010 at 2:59 PM
Don’t you dare call my comment a strawman.
If it’s better to be safe then sorry, then we should keep flights grounded forever since there are inherent risks to flying.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:01 PM
Did anyone actually read the story before blathering about “reasonable” and “credible” risks?
Apparently not.
lorien1973 on April 26, 2010 at 3:01 PM
Keep in mind the Europeans have never had to deal with this sort of crisis, nor has it affected so many commercial flight routes, so they were kind of feeling their way forward and proceeding with the information they had available.
You can bet that in the event of a major eruption of one of the Aleutian or Kamchatka volcanoes that transpacific routes will be either rerouted or canceled. There are many variables that go into a problem like this, but because the risk -deaths and loss of assets- is much more significant than the potential benefit -normal flight ops and revenue- it’s prudent to err on the side of caution.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 3:04 PM
Like AGW.
petefrt on April 26, 2010 at 3:05 PM
This statement is meaningless from a risk-managment perspective. How much error is prudent for how much caution?
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:06 PM
You know, we should trust the so-called experts especially regarding commerce and the like. Cap ‘N Trade should be a done deal. These guys never get anything wrong and save us a lot especially monetarily in the long run.
/sarc
Sultry Beauty on April 26, 2010 at 3:09 PM
That’s exactly it. They didn’t know. You cannot take the course with the higher risk if you do not have all the information you require.
These inherent risks are very, very minimal, certainly less so than other modes of transport. This event, on the other hand, put hundreds of aircraft at risk. You already know NATO aircraft suffered engine damage. Your argument is still a straw man, no matter how much you whine.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 3:09 PM
Death and loss of property is the highest risk, which was the case here. Are you willing to allow hundreds of passenger aircraft to fly into a situation which may have been much more hazardous than regular flight ops? Remember, it was certain that aircraft were suffering damage.
fiatboomer on April 26, 2010 at 3:13 PM
*cough*
Evidence has emerged that the maximum density of the ash was only about one 20th of the limit that scientists, the Government, and aircraft and engine manufacturers have now decided is safe.
*cough*
lorien1973 on April 26, 2010 at 3:14 PM
Then admit the reason for taking the course with less risk. The reason was that they were clueless about the locations and concentrations of ash.
Tell the public, “we’re clueless about the ash, but we want to ground flights because there might be hell to pay otherwise.”
Oh! You want to use the safety of other modes of transportation as your standard? Why didn’t you say so. Please show me the risk analysis that determined that flying these aircraft during daylight VMC would have been more risky that highway driving.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:16 PM
Thousands of aircraft are at risk everyday due to thunderstorms, poor maintenance, structural failure, low visibility, low ceilings, etc.
There’s no way you can justify someone stating, “it’s better to be safe than sorry.” And you certainly can’t label criticism of such a statement as a strawman. Actually, “strawman” doesn’t even make sense in that context.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:20 PM
No, actually, I just know that some office claims this occurred. I’ll wait for further details about it.
However, that being said, I’d also like to know if these aircraft flew into visible ash clouds or if they were attempting to avoid ash clouds.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:21 PM
Death and loss of property are always at risk whenever an aircraft is airborne.
Everyday aircraft are allowed to fly into an area with forecasted thunderstorms (which occurs everyday) we are allowing aircraft to fly into a situation which is much more hazardous than regular flight ops.
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:24 PM
fiatboomer, did you analyze the number of deaths that occurred because of the increase in highway travel – which was caused by the grounding of all flights?
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Several airlines flew passenger jets thru the ash cloud. No passengers, just crew. KLM was the first as I recall, and Air France and Lufthansa also did test flights.
But remember what happened to the commercial flight over Alaska some years back (1989_-a similar ash cloud fouled all 4 engines of a KLM 747 that had flown thru a cloud near Alaska, enroute from Amsterdam to Tokyo. They were at 25,000 feet, and couldn’t get the engines restarted until they had descended to 11,000 feet. The aircraft cost $80 million to repair. A few years earlier a British Air flight had the same problem.
Del Dolemonte on April 26, 2010 at 3:37 PM
Was there an ash cloud over the entire area? Did all flights need to be grounded? Or could daylight VMC flights with extra fuel have been allowed as long as continuous pireps tracked the ash clouds?
blink on April 26, 2010 at 3:43 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »