Volcanic disruptions

Ironically, just one day before Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano erupted on June 4, Dr Herbert Puempel, aeronautical chief of the World Meteorological Organisation, warned in a paper that ash and aviation was a complex issue still under debate.

Despite sophisticated satellite measuring and tracking capabilities and reams of engine data, the only industry instruction relating to volcanic ash from the International Civil Aviation Organisation is: “Avoid any level of ash contamination. ” Dr Puempel has warned the industry is reluctant to set a limit because once it was agreed on, “lawyers would have a field day”.

Henry Gaudru, president of the European Volcanological Society, said scientists were unable to measure ash density in the atmosphere reliably, except in the immediate vicinity of an eruption.

Confusing matters in the Australian and New Zealand context, local experts gave differing views.

New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority meteorology manager Peter Lechner, a volcanic ash expert who set up the framework for the global Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres, said that with the ash cloud between 20,000 and 40,000ft, it would not [should not] disrupt New Zealand domestic flights.

“That gives airline operators plenty of scope to carry on safe operations underneath the cloud,” he said.

Dr Andrew Tupper, head of the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Darwin, thought the Qantas and Jetstar cancellations were unnecessary. He toldThe Australian he knew of “no documented evidence of engine damage caused by an ash cloud thousands of kilometres away from an eruption. ” Tupper told Australian Aviation that the cloud was “quite distinct and was largely where it was forecast to be. ” Darwin’s VAAC was being assisted by other volcanic ash monitoring centres to develop more complete computer models of the cloud and its behaviour. The centre used a range of satellite imagery including those of NASA, although these are less frequent than those available to monitor European and US airspace.

In New Zealand, authorities used Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) optical sensing equipment to gauge the thickness of the ash cloud. This system is sometimes termed ‘laser radar’, and is extremely accurate in determining the depth of the ash cloud.

Qanta s’s view

Qantas’s response to the ash cloud was coordinated through its Critical Operational Event Group, led by chief pilot Captain Peter Wilson and Head of Integrated Operations Centre Alan Milne.

The group maintained that getting accurate and comprehensive data on ash concentration levels was difficult during the volcanic ash cloud crisis. Like other airlines, Qantas had to rely on ash models provided by the VAACs from Toulouse, Darwin, Wellington and Buenos Aires.

“We also received pilot reports of ash in areas well away from the predicted cloud,” said a spokeswomen.

“An additional problem was the uncertainty surrounding the base of the VAACs’ ash modelling. No absolute floor could be guaranteed and no data was available to determine either the potential ash fallout from the base or the ash concentration level. ” “With all the unknowns, and our determination not to fly in the presence of or underneath volcanic ash, Qantas made an operational decision that it was not safe to fly. ” Qantas insists that it wasn’t a commercial decision, nor was it made with reference to what other operators were doing. “It was, however, a practical example of what it means to have safety as our first priority,” said the spokeswomen.

“Up in Europe they have the ability with the data to actually get ash concentrations, that is the density of the ash. That is a very important piece of information. That information is not available to us through the Darwin VAAC,” explained Capt Wilson in a Qantas video posted on YouTube on June 16. “What we get is purely a model of where they believe the ash cloud is. Therefore this leads us to looking at that model and making a risk assessment based on all the information we have as to whether or not it is safe to operate. So for example in this particular case, the base level of the ash cloud, there were question marks as to was there ash below this base. Ash is subjected to gravity like most other things and there may well be ash falling out beneath it.

Therefore the decision was taken that we would not operate in known areas of ash.

We do not want to go near volcanic ash. ” To make a more accurate judgement in the future, Qantas is supporting a project managed by Airborne Research Australia (ARA), which is part of Flinders University’s School of Environment, that aims to enhance the quality of data used to assess the density of ash clouds within Australian airspace. That saw specialist instrumentation flown from Europe to Australia and fitted to ARA’s Diamond HK-36 motorised glider, which was able to do some atmospheric sampling over Tasmania in the last days of the ash cloud crisis.

“The Tasmanian airways was the final stop of the ash cloud, as probably everybody knows,” Assoc Prof Jorg Hacker, head of ARA, told ABC TV’s 7. 30 SA. “We still decided to come here [Hobart] because we can then confirm that the forecasts that come from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres that the Bureau of Meteorology operates that there is indeed nothing left and what we found on our flights is that there is very, very little left. ” “We have today an aircraft – working with Flinders University . . . . to put aircraft in the air, specialist aircraft, to actually test the amount of ash that’s in the cloud,” Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the National Press Club on June 22.

“And we’ve taken scientists down from the UK – this is all a Qantas initiative – to look at what we can do in order to understand the density a lot better . . . In Europe where there is sophisticated technology in to assess it, it’s rated as low, medium and high. For low density we can travel through it. So we really do want to minimise this. We have to plan for the future, that this doesn’t … keep on reoccurring, how do we manage the implications of it, and what measures can we put in that reduces the implications.

“I will say again that safety is our top priority and in the Qantas Group’s view it was increased risk by flying, flying under the cloud, around the cloud. There was increased risk by taking that measure.

“So we decided not to do it. ”However, Qantas’s view of a world with ash was not shared by all other airlines, including direct competitor Virgin Australia, which continued to fly all domestic routes until ash was forecast below 20,000ft.

And those differences manifested themselves into a range of rumours and downright falsehoods.

There were spurious allegations of Virgin Australia flying across the Tasman Sea at just 2000ft, while Jetstar employees reportedly tried to defend the airline’s decision not to fly by telling passengers that Virgin Australia had taken all the lower altitude flightpaths and none were left for Jetstar! Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe lashed out at Qantas in a memo to staff, saying that his airline had been “constantly battling a series of malicious rumours that emerged from the Australian market and fed to media, suggesting that Air New Zealand had six aircraft in the hangar with ash damage, an aircraft grounded in Australia with ash damage and an aircraft requiring a nose cone replacement as a result of ash damage. ” “All these stories were a complete fiction and I was left scratching my head as to where these false rumours were coming from,” Fyfe added.

Fyfe was annoyed by Alan Joyce’s email to Qantas’s eight million frequent flyer customers, trying to explain the decision to ground many of its aircraft while all other airlines were flying, and that could be interpreted as implying that airlines like Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia were operating unsafely.

“What Alan omitted to mention was that it wasn’t just Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia that had managed to adapt their operations to operate safely in clear air, but all airlines apart from Qantas and Jetstar had managed to achieve the vast majority of their operations. ” “What Alan also failed to mention was that Qantas was very happy to transfer thousands of its customers onto Air New Zealand and other airlines’ services, which seems a strange thing to do for your customers if you have concerns about the safety of the airspace. ” Interestingly, a Qantas A380 en route from Los Angeles to Melbourne did inadvertently fly into a forecast area of potential volcanic ash.

“It was reported that, while cruising at flight level 400 and approaching position 27° south and 177° east, the flightcrew were advised by air traffic services (ATS) personnel of the release of an updated SIGMET.

That SIGMET indicated that an ash cloud had moved further north than previously advised,” notes a June 27 ATSB statement.

“The flightcrew requested and were cleared by ATS to climb to FL 410 and to deviate from track to clear the area. It was estimated that the aircraft spent about 15 minutes in the revised area of potential volcanic ash. The flightcrew advised that there was no visual or other indication of their encountering any ash.

“On arrival in Melbourne, the aircraft was subjected to an engine inspection with no fault found. The aircraft was released to service. ”

Air New Zealand’s view

According to Fyfe, Air New Zealand’s ability to fly was due to enormous efforts from its Flight Operations teams, who have long experience with ash events and worked around the clock to maintain safe operations across the network.

“Coordinated by our chief pilot David Morgan and Bob Fletcher in Operations Support, the Flight Ops teams and fleet managers across each of our fleet types and regional airlines worked together with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, Met Service and air traffic control/Airways New Zealand to undertake a continuous risk assessment, determine the position of the ash cloud and adapt our flightpaths and flight levels to ensure we could continue to operate in ash-free air,” Fyfe told staff in a memo.

“Whenever we perceived a risk that our clear air requirements would be compromised we ceased services, but fortunately this happened on relatively few occasions.

“While a number of other airlines in Australasia initially ceased services, very quickly, with the exception of Qantas and Jetstar, they are operating on a similar basis as Air New Zealand,” Fyfe said.

Part of the price was high fuel burn for either longer flight routes or lower altitudes.

“Air New Zealand’s commitment to adapting its services and accepting the cost of a higher fuel burn to fly longer tracks at lower altitude was very well received by customers and increasingly the media began praising Air New Zealand’s approach as the week progressed,” Fyfe said.

Fyfe warned staff during the ash cloud crisis “that it was likely we will see Qantas and Jetstar come under further customer and media pressure if they continue to adopt this strategy of grounding aircraft and it is possible that we will continue to see misinformation and false rumours emerge in the market. ” In the two weeks between June 12 and 26, Air New Zealand operated approximately 7000 flights and moved around 400,000 passengers.

It was forced to cancel approximately a dozen flights late in the evening of June 15 and the morning of June 16 due to particularly low ash levels (10,000ft) affecting the airports of Invercargill, Queenstown, Dunedin and Christchurch. According to the airline, all flights into New Zealand and Australian destinations, plus domestic jet operations during the ash period carried 20 minutes additional holding fuel, which impacted payloads in some cases. Air New Zealand used approximately 10 per cent more fuel because of the revised operations.

However, the airline did not fly through any ash.

“Our flight operations team worked closely with CAA and NZ MetService in New Zealand to determine safe routes to operate and also worked closely with ASA and CASA to ensure the same in Australia,” said Fyfe.

Alaskan experience

Ash clouds are nothing new to Air New Zealand, Capt Morgan explained to Australian Aviation.

“When Mount Ruapehu erupted in 1995 and 1996 we had major ash events that closed a significant amount of airspace, so we formed a group to examine operations in the ash environment,” noted Capt Morgan.

“We realised that being an isolated island nation air links are critical and the initial reaction of a blanket airspace closure was not good enough. ” “We took a leadership role after Ruapehu and went out and sought help.

“The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres didn’t exist then and Peter [Lechner] spearheaded the ICAO process to create VAACs. ” Morgan and Lechner sought out Alaska Airlines which constantly operates around volcanoes.

“At some airports in its network aircraft operate on runways made up of ash,” Morgan said.

“The late Capt Terry Smith taught us how to manage and operate in an ash environment. ” Capt Smith was one of the seed capital investors in Naverus, explained Capt Morgan.

“We extracted Alaska Airlines’ operations procedure with regard to ash and have used them as a basis for our operations. ” Morgan explained that when the Chilean cloud came along the airline knew it was extremely fine, as it was 9000km from the volcano and still at 30,000ft.

“The fact that it went around the world twice validated our view,” said Morgan. “So it was absolutely safe to fly under it. ” And just to make sure there wasn’t a problem, Air New Zealand did borescope inspections on eight aircraft “We found nothing! “Pilots also made PIREP reports [pilot reports] on every flight to Air New Zealand Ops, CAA and Metservice’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre on whether or not they could see ash during their flights,” said Capt Morgan.

“All this was reported through to the CAA to assist accuracy of their forecasts. ” Another factor was the availability of sophisticated ash measuring equipment, with New Zealand having extra resources to measure the thickness of the ash cloud.

More to come?

Climate change and an increase in earthquakes are expected to cause a surge in volcanic activity, with some of the worst effects expected in the southern hemisphere.

Many studies have found the faster rate of melting ice is changing the pressures on the Earth’s crust and the magma underneath.

Iceland’s biggest ice cap is vanishing by 5cu km per year, reducing it by 10 per cent in the past 100 years, according to a study by the universities of Leeds and Iceland published in Science Daily.

“Under the ice’s weight, the crust bends and as you melt the ice the crust will bounce up again,” volcanologist Bill McGuire of University College London said. (He was not involved in the study. ) Professor McGuire also believes the resulting higher sea levels will increase volcanic activity.

“We are going to see a massive increase in volcanic activity globally; if we look back at previous warm periods that is what happened. ” That is not good news for Australian travellers, especially as there is concern about Antarctica’s 35 volcanoes. Even closer to Australia is Big Ben, a massive volcano on Heard Island, 4000km to the southwest of WA. The island is covered with ice, including 14 glaciers.

The recent spate of big earthquakes will affect volcanic activity, according to scientists.

In March last year, David Pyle, a volcanologist at the University of Oxford, predicted that after Chile’s magnitude 8. 8 earthquake on February 27 last year, volcanic activity would rise in the following 12 to 18 months. Professor Pyle pointed to big earthquakes in 1906 and 1960 that were followed a year later by three or four volcanic eruptions within about 500km of the epicentre. Chile has 36 active volcanoes.

None of this is good news for airlines and travellers.

Last year’s menacing ash cloud from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut Europe’s airspace. The effect was devastating, with 100,000 flights cancelled, 313 airports closed over four days, and 1. 2 million passengers a day affected at the peak.

For the past 30 years planes have been involved in 90 encounters with volcanic ash.

One incident that demonstrated the problem and the uncertainty was that of a NASA DC-8 Super 62 in 2000. It flew through volcanic ash, 400km from where the ash was forecast, and the extensive engine damage, costing US$3. 2 million to repair, was not found until a postflight analysis.

Made up of pulverised rock and glass, the ash gets into nearly every system, and can also blast the pilot’s windscreen making it opaque, while the glass in the ash melts in the combustion chamber’s cauldron and melds with moving parts and sticks to sensors.

Clearly ash is a serious danger, and disruptions to air travel will be more frequent if scientists are correct.