Comments on: Airlines and Scientists Clash Over the Volcanic Ash Cloud

By: scott

scott — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:40:26 +0000

Few are trusting scientist anymore…..I know so many people who no longer believe in climate change (man caused)…I have told people for years not to use too much antibacterial products in their homes and was mostly ridiculed for my concern. I think the masses have been sucessfully conditioned by corporations – hence demaning planes fly when scientists warn against it. Even my friend in Hawaii said many people ignored the recent tsunami evacuation – and because the wave that came barely stirred up the water, they shrugged it off and will most likely ignore a future warning. The right wing and corporations have done a brilliant job as branding scientist as untrustworthy to the general public who lack in sufficient science study. It’s as if something catastrophic has to happen before people wake up and demand action/changes be it for safety or environmental.

By: Eliza Strickland

Eliza Strickland — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:47:43 +0000

NOYB — you’re right, that was quite a goof. My apologies, and thanks for catching it. I fixed it in the post.

Eliza, online news editor

By: Bee

Bee — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:40:06 +0000

It's not true that there have been no facts and figures. You might find this article interesting: The Scientific Debate over the Flight Ban.

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:53:08 +0000

I’d want safety to be the first priority and thus far it has been. When it comes to volcanoes, you could easily have air currents with higher or lower ash concentrations, and it could be dependant upon everything from today’s path of the jet stream, recent precipitation, the status of the erupting volcano, or lots of other things I can’t think of right now.

The ash scours the windows, causes electrostatic buildup, erodes the turbine blades, melts in the engines, and does endless damage to vital systems. You don’t want that.

And as bad as it is over continental Europe, at least you have the potential to land. A lot of those cancelled flights are trans-Atlantic and there’s no safe place to put down in a hurry. That was the situation with the BA flight in ’82.

Having said all that, I’m sure glad I’m not in the middle of a trip, stranded somewhere! That’s gotta suck.

By: ChH

ChH — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:32:03 +0000

NOYB – It was 248 metric passengers, which converts to almost 800 in English units.
(dang you beat me to it)

By: acjohnson

acjohnson — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:47:49 +0000

Hopefully watching all air travel in Europe grind to a halt will alert some of the powers that be to start investing a little more into our mass transit should we have a volcano of our own shut down our airways.

By: Mildly Irritated

Mildly Irritated — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:57:53 +0000

Good Call NOYB! How about a little focus on the bottom line and more on the fact that people’s lives are at stake. I can just hear there argument now…putting planes back in the air was an “acceptable” risk.

By: NOYB

NOYB — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:51:34 +0000

“In 1982, almost 800 passengers on a British Airways flight had a narrow escape when the plane lost power in all four engines after flying though an ash cloud over the Indian Ocean.”

Wildly inaccurate passenger count – 248 passengers and 15 crew don’t add up to 800. Try doing some fact checking before publishing!

By the way, the really salient point about this whole volcano ash aspect is that the next plane to crash (in Europe presumably) will likely be blamed (quite correctly) on the greed of the airlines flying too soon, when they have no other basis but their own economic agenda to do so. One wonders how long flights will be grounded then – that single volcano has previously erupted frequently over a two year period in the past – so air travle might THEN become a faint memory for many in Europe. THAT is the story!