Planes Flying Again; Is it Safe?
[Guest post by DRJ]
Planes are flying again in most of Europe but scientists disagree on whether or when it’s safe to fly:
“Six days after volcanic ash shut down the skies over much of Europe, planes are back in the air, but science still can’t answer the question:
Is it safe to fly again?
Mother Nature has given Europe a lesson in risk, aviation technology, scientific uncertainty and economics. And how these fields intersect is messy.
Watching the same people who earlier said it was too dangerous to fly now say it’s safe “is just more proof that risk is a subjective idea,” said David Ropeik, a risk perception expert at Harvard University.
When people turn to science for answers, they get a lot equivocation.
“We really don’t have as good a handle as we should on the ash particle size, the ash concentration and most important, just exactly how high the ash got up into the atmosphere,” said Gary Hufford, a U.S. government volcano expert based in Anchorage, Alaska.
Would he get on a plane and fly into the ash cloud? “I would be cautious,” he said in a Tuesday conference call.”
Here are some of the scientific issues:
“Engineers worry about immediate catastrophic damage when the ash dust congeals in an engine turbine, blocking air flow and shutting it down, Fabian said. In 1989, when a Boeing 747 flew through volcanic ash over Alaska, all four engines failed and the plane dropped more than two miles in five minutes, before engines restarted. Ash can also cause long-term abrasive damage to planes that could lead to later disasters if not dealt with.
Fabian said the reason engineers know so little about the risks from volcanic ash is that it would take many hours and great expense to do repeated tests. And tests would be needed for the 20 different types of engines currently flown.
And even if engineers knew how much ash a plane’s engines could handle, atmospheric scientists can’t say how much ash is in any one place or predict what will happen next, said Jon Davidson, a professor of earth sciences at Durham University in England. The ash becomes more diluted as it goes higher in altitude but also clumps together at times like sediments in a river, he said.”
The rarity of this type of event together with the lack of scientific studies makes this more of a risk assessment decision than a scientific matter.
— DRJ
and yet it never occurred to anyone to send up balloons with instruments to gather data, instead of relying on computer generated SWAG’s….
oh well, at least it gave the First Racist a good excuse to blow off the typical white people over in Poland. what a thanker he is.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/20/2010 @ 4:29 pmSend an Imperial Probe Droid.
ropelight (e6e651) — 4/20/2010 @ 4:31 pmI guess my comment didn’t post?
I love spouting off about things I don’t understand, so I wanted to suggest mandating only multiengined craft fly within X miles of this event’s cloud, with at least 1 engine shut down within X miles of the cloud.
That way, it’s more likely that one of the engines would be able to survive some catastrophe, since it wasn’t hot or forcing particles into it. I know some aircraft probably can’t fly safely without all engines, but some can… just use those for the time being in this area.
Just a thought… I guess they would already be doing it if this were a good solution.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/20/2010 @ 7:17 pmI don’t know that lots of studying would actually give us a more reliable “answer”.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/20/2010 @ 7:17 pmWatching the Barcelona / Inter Milan soccer game today, Barcelona looked like a tired team in losing 3-1. Instead of a flight taking a couple of hours they had to take a bus to Milan covering the 1,000 km trip. They took two days with a lot of stops to stretch but still they looked out of synch and I have to believe the trip had something to do with it. Messi was barely noticeable in the game.
Lyon plays Bayern-Munich tomorrow and they couldn’t fly to Munich either so it will be interesting to see if they are missing a jump in their game.
If someone other than Barca wins the ECL the volcano is going to get the blame/credit I bet. Especially if Bayern and Inter can fly to the second leg in France and Spain.
MU789 (25b69d) — 4/20/2010 @ 7:21 pmHi DRJ did you seethis?
It’s neat… it shows how Texas is the “stickiest” state by a good margin cause Texans are less apt to go move to another state.
happyfeet (c8caab) — 4/20/2010 @ 8:21 pmthere was a space supposed to be there
happyfeet (c8caab) — 4/20/2010 @ 8:32 pmoh… wrong thread… it is very hard to make the pages load and such
happyfeet (c8caab) — 4/20/2010 @ 8:39 pmhappyfeet,
Fascinating. I hadn’t heard about “sticky” states before but I’m glad to know Texas is the stickiest.
DRJ (09fa6c) — 4/20/2010 @ 9:18 pmI thought y’all were talking about marijuana when you said sticky.
I don’t even smoke, either.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/20/2010 @ 9:22 pm“…The rarity of this type of event together with the lack of scientific studies makes this more of a risk assessment decision than a scientific matter.”
Nothing to worry about here, since this testing regimen was contracted to Toyota.
AD - RtR/OS! (83fa7e) — 4/21/2010 @ 12:27 pmDoes it stress the frame of the plane to fly a few hundred miles with some engines shut down?
Is it just not worth it, because ash on a dormant engine isn’t going to affect it differently than one that is hot?
Just curious.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/21/2010 @ 12:55 pmDustin, it stresses the pilots.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/21/2010 @ 1:57 pmDustin, it doesn’t stress the pilots near as much as 4 engines flaming out at the same time. Gonna be a lot of engines need a lot of replacement parts.
Hazy (4e0dda) — 4/21/2010 @ 2:12 pmWell, HOPE AND CHANGE. So there.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/21/2010 @ 2:24 pm