In Iceland, a huge volcanic eruption from the, wait for it, Eyjafjallajokull volcano has produced clouds of ash thousands of feet into the sky. It is the second time this month that this volcano has erupted, but it has been over 200 years since this month that it has been silent.
Northern Europe became the brunt of this massive destruction where the ash in the air has caused flight cancelations in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Holland, France and Spain. All these airports will remain closed until midday Friday. It is reported that it is the first time in aviation history that all aircraft have been canceled across North Europe. People have been claiming the impact on travelers as "worse than 9/11" which I personally believe is a little drastic to say considering 9/11 was a manmade destruction and this was not.
Apparently the sky appears like a dusty haze and it smells of sulphur and rotten eggs.
The reason why the planes can't fly with these ash particles is not entirely because of visibiltiy, but rather if the ash gets into the engine, it blocks up all of the ventilation holes that bleed in cooling air. The engines just end up shutting down.
Wow, that is really crazy, considering people consider the effects worse than 9/11. There is a picture of the link of the cloud of ash from Iceland in the link, check it out!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dk-matai/volcanic-fury-suspends-ai_b_539811.html
Thursday, April 15, 2010
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5 comments:
Sounds pretty scary. Guess earthquakes aren't the only thing we should be paranoid about these days.
The earth must be angry at us. ):
First earthquakes and now a volcano.
Not only are the effects of the ash in the sky detrimental to travelers, but basically shutting down all these air ports is having a HUGE monetary effect. The airports are losing millions of dollars in revenue (i think i hear on NPR it was something like 200 million a day?), which can have a drastic effect on them many months on in the future.
And, I would definitely agree that this event is probably having a larger effect on travelers than 9/11 did. With low visibility and harmful effects on engines, it's not really a matter of choice to fly; it's just not possible if the plane is going to break down 1 hour into the flight...
i think its a little insensitive to compare something like this to 9/11... yeah it sucks for travelers, but i think after 9/11 more people were grieving than worried about their European vacations
Dangggggggg. Ash thousands of feet in the sky... thats pretty dang high up there. Also, air that smells of eggs and sulfur... pretty annoying that must be. Good thing there aren't any volcanoes around here that can do that.
I agree and feel sorry for the travelers. Something that people are saying affect flying as much as September 11th is saying something.
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