No fly zone!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8628323.stm

Sounds like still no flights from the UK, in the aftermath of the Icelandic volcano.

It also seems the airlines are quite desparate to resume flights, and there are a lot of angry passengers.

Of course I'm a third generation safety engineer, so tend to lean towards "perhaps we shouldn't fly if this presents a risk".

I think everyone gets very vocal about an issue like this which grounds planes. But should one fly and have an accident, the first question which will be asked will be "if you knew there was a danger, why did you let it fly".

[Rob McCow]

Initially I was sceptical about all the planes being grounded. But once I saw the explanation of what happens when a jet passes through a cloud of ash I was convinced! The whole concept of the ash turning to glass is good enough reason for me.

[SiHart]

Is it worth risking lives, or making people angry? I suspect people will get over their anger quicker than being dead.

Besides which it's lovely and quiet without the planes streaking overhead all the time here.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I suspect the woman on the news who chirped "It's the closest we've come to a war time evacuation" as she had to get the Dover Ferry hasn't any actual experience of the Blitz.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

It's a difficult situation for all concenred, but some of the passnegers really ought to try and make some effort to understand a bit more about what their flight actually entails before making such a fuss. I've heard people say 'can't they just fly over/under/around it?', as if that's as easy as driving your car around a dead cat in the road.

The ash cloud is invisible to conventional airline weather radar; sandblasts the skin of the aircraft, making the widows opaque: a slight issue for the pilots when coming in to land; and makes the engines stop working. All in all, a good set of reasons for not trying to fly through one!

The sad thing is that the same people who will try to sue the airline for ruining their holiday would likely be the first to sue them for flying in dangerous conditions if there was an accident.

It's a volcano. We may be quite technologically capable these days, but nature can still smack us down when she feels like it.

[Stuart Wallis]

The sad thing is that the same people who will try to sue the airline for ruining their holiday would likely be the first to sue them for flying in dangerous conditions if there was an accident.

"Madam, if the plane goes up, you'll go up with it, we'll all go together when she goes. It's a very simple question Mrs. Birdbrain; do you want to die?"

[Captain Tancredi]

To be fair, some of the KLM and British Airways test flights which went up yesterday had the airline chief execs on board, but I think one of the key things is the relationship that the European flag carriers have with their respective governments. The likes of Lufthansa, KLM and Air France are in a position to say "either you open the airspace up or we're going to need a massive bailout to keep going", and with the Euro just having taken a knock from the likes of Greece hitting serious financial bother, probably no government is going to go for the bailout.

Two people in my department that I know of are stranded abroad- one in Spain and one in Italy, hoping to get home on Thursday. My old school friend Robin, however, was in Jerusalem on business last week, and having endured two days in an airport hotel in Tel Aviv (learning along the way that Israeli hotels won't do your laundry on the Sabbath), ended up coming home via a flight to Rome and a hire car to Calais with an overnight stop in central France.