Beyond the ash cloud

On a dark night back in 1982, the British Airways Boeing 747 unknowingly entered an ash cloud, leading to all four engines flaming out. Under the command of Captain Eric Moody, the crew desperately sought to restore power to the failed engines as the aircraft descended towards the high terrain of the surrounding Indonesian mountains. Moody’s calm address to the passengers has become the stuff of legend. As he announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress. ” History records that the crew did indeed restore power to the failed engines, albeit with a series of other contributing issues. Even so, they were able to divert to Jakarta and land safely with all on board unscathed.

In the wake of the investigation, a good deal was learned from the dramatic events. The volcanic ash consists of very small glass and rock particles and is harmful to aircraft engines when ingested. In the first instance, the abrasive material can damage the compressor blades where the air enters the engine and should the material make it through to the combustion chamber, it will melt into a form like molten glass. This molten liquid then solidifies on the engine’s turbine blades. The net effect is that the airflow through the engine is greatly altered to the degree that the engine can stall. As Speedbird 9 discovered, the abrasive nature of volcanic ash also erodes other airframe components, including the windscreen, making forward visibility nearly impossible.

For these reasons and more, aviation treats volcanic eruptions with a great deal of respect. The ash from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano was 11,000km from Australia in 2011, yet it wended its way through the upper atmosphere to create issues over Australia and New Zealand. Airlines have teams and strategies in place around the clock and around the world to deal with such events and assess the risks they pose to airliners.

And beyond volcanic ash, the risks can extend from unsafe airspace over politically hostile regions to the presence of cyclones. Each threat is addressed and operations modified based upon the findings. The system is not without weaknesses and at times lacks consistency from one airline to

Rather than questioning why the flight is late, we should marvel at how so many flights run to schedule.

another, but it is still a vast improvement on the hit-and-miss logic that once existed. However, today the world is also a very different place.

Terrorist alert levels, weather phenomena and anonymous bomb threats are all hostile elements that can be thrown at airlines that exist beyond their control. In turn each must be addressed and assessed and the safest course of action adopted. Amidst the genuine assault on safety that these threats provide, there is an underlying commercial cost to the airlines.

It takes manpower and money to manage these additional issues. Committees cost cash and ongoing education does not come cheaply. Additionally, airline crews are required to be routinely trained and tested on issues of safety and security. Often the findings result in flights being grounded and the airline loses revenue from these services. This is done in the interests of safety and the welfare of the passengers – and so it should be.

Safety and security costs money and yet it is an aspect of airline operations that often flies beneath the radar. When the passenger holds that $99 fare in their hand, they rarely consider what is involved in the safe transit of the skies. The airframe, fuel and crew costs may be immediately apparent, but there is so much more involved.

Too often some passengers are all too prepared to launch a tirade at a delay or some aspect of service on board. Experience would suggest that more often than not, a bad reaction is more often the result of expectations not being met rather than the product necessarily being at fault. The lobster may be superb, but you won’t be happy if you ordered a steak. Similarly, passengers board an aircraft with an expectation, and sometimes it is not set in the ‘real world’ while on other occasions it lacks flexibility.

Fares have consistently been driven down over recent years, while the structures needed to support flight safety have been continually increased. To break down an airline ticket into the various cost components of any flight would leave the ticket shredded into a million pieces. Safety, training, air service fees, maintenance, fuel, crew costs, terminal leases, booking systems, ground staff, and so on and so on.

The fact that so many flights run so close to schedule day after day is a tribute to the airlines and their people. Each flight is a carefully choreographed sequence of events intermingled with hundreds of other aircraft occupying the same dance floor. Rather than questioning why the flight is late, we should possibly marvel at how so many flights run to schedule. But I doubt that will ever happen.

As the volcanic ash clouds loom large and flights are cancelled it is worth remembering that the inconvenience is of benefit to no-one. Aircraft need to fly to generate revenue and crews need to fly to earn their pay. However, none of these considerations rank anywhere near the priority to convey people safely from Point A to Point B. Protecting passengers against all manner of threats is a costly business that the airlines take very seriously. So next time the best laid plans are circumvented by circumstance, it may be worth looking at the boarding pass. Look beyond the logo and the print and imagine the myriad of considerations those invisible folks contemplate before saying that it is safe to fly – and be thankful that they do.

For it is always safer to be on the ground wishing that you were flying than the other way around.