By *anecdotal* I didn’t mean to discredit the information, which we know is
factual, only to indicate the one-off (OK, two-off) nature of the event and
the need to avoid exaggerating its importance in overall risk management. If
we were to count up all of the things that have happened once or twice and
make rules for each case we wouldn’t be flying a lot. A couple of years back a
jet developed a fuel leak and just barely made an emergency landing before all
engines quit. They had correctly planned their fuel reserves and had no way of
knowing there was a leak until it became an emergency. We could, based on this
one incident, modify ETOPS procedures to indicate all aircraft must remain
within gliding distance of an airport at all times. That would be an excess of
precaution based on an anecdotal incident, but the incident, and the risk were
real.
Do government officials *want* to close the airspace? What they want is to
hold onto their posh jobs, and to do so they want to avoid being blamed for
responding poorly to crises, natural and otherwise. This time it backfired to
a degree, as most people do not share your opinion that the cancellations were
reasonable. However, your opinion is the more understandable in that you
appear to be in the UK, which was the zone most at risk during the incident (I
was going to say *affected* but that would probably be overstating the case).
In other countries, France for example, cancelled all flights in and out of
Paris, while for most of the time all flights operating to and from southerly
and easterly directions could have operated normally, with no risk increase.
Most people there felt (from published polls) that the measures were
disproportionate and created unnecessary hardships for thousands.
I find it amusing that Obama is caught in turmoil over the BP accident.
Certainly he could not have predicted the accident, and certainly one it has
occurred it is a real technical challenge to stop it. He cannot slam his fist
on the table and make the oil stop flowing. The funny part is trying to
imagine the reaction had he issued a precautionary moratorium on all oil
exploitation and exploration in the Gulf BEFORE the accident!!
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says...
Not sure why you refer to said encounter as anecdotal. To suggest that
implies the evidence is just heresay, or a) it wasn't volcanic ash, or
b) volcanic ash does not cause problems in jet engines.
Nor do I agree with you that the authorities action is a knee-jerk one.
They go by the data they have - and their recommended closure spaces are
not excessive IMO.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation...aacuk_vag.html
Do you think the authorities *want* to close airspace? Do you think
they do not realise how much revenue is lost to the airline industry and
to countries? (I'm sure they don't take that into account in their
scientifiy analysis - I sure hope they don't - that's not their job.)
--
Duncan.
In article ,
says...
No memory problem here - that was one of the anecdotal encounters I
referred
to. Do you want me to point out the other one, or should I leave you the
satisfaction of "informing" a group of already informed contributors? My
point
was that these encounters do not, in fact, in any way justify the summary,
knee-jerk reaction of the Eurpoean authorities in the latest case.
The good side of this is that the authorities' response was so egregiously
inappropriate and disproportioned, that it shed light on the limitations of
a
"Precautions Without Borders" policy and most people understood that we are
at
the threshold where our precautions are going to start costing lives,
possibly
in greater number than the risk they're meant to thwart.
In article ,
says...
In article ,
says...
In article
,
says...
Can we make it a crime to twist words so as to create a clever
acronym?
People get paid money to come up with Characters Rearranged Avoiding
Pertinence like that.
How about PIF trauma?
Western governments are now completely regimented by Pie In the Face
stress
disorder.
While a small majority of people still recognize they cannot blame their
governments for natural disasters (notwithstanding attempts at same by
inventing global warming), it has become routine and automatic to blame
them for not reacting adequately and not practicing enough prevention.
In the hundred something years that airplanes have been flying, not a
year
has gone by without volcanoes erupting somewhere on the planet. There
have
been a couple of anecdotal run-ins at very high altitude - certainly
worth
practicing some avoidance, but the death toll still remains at zero. The
European governments must feel a great sense of injustice at being
criticized for pulling the main circuit breaker on the entire society in
their latest _prevention_ efforts, causing untold damage and hardship
for
millions for no justifiable cause. Geez - What?s a government to do?
Short memory? - check this incident out (I think it's one of the major
incidents that's led to the closure of airways - they don't want a
repeat!) ...
A 747, all four engines stopped, for about 12 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9
--
Duncan.
--
Duncan.