SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
European Airline Prepares for Next Volcano
from Spiegel
The April 2010 eruption of
Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano
caused the greatest closure of
European airspace since World War
II, stranding millions of
passengers and leading to the
cancellation of most flights across
the continent for nearly a week.
Total damages and lost revenues
were estimated at €5 billion. The
situation sparked a massive debate
over the concentration at which
volcanic ash could become a safety
hazard for jets and other aircraft.
Later in 2010 and again last year,
a second Icelandic volcano,
Grímsvötn, also caused air traffic
disruptions.
But a new type of ash cloud
sensor could be ready by 2012 to be
installed on commercial passenger
planes. The infrared system is
called "Avoid," and can currently
be installed on an aircraft's wings
in the form of a carbon tube that
warns pilots if they are about to
encounter dangerous ash particles
from volcanic eruptions. The sensor
has been developed by Fred Prata of
the Norwegian Institute for Air
Research in Kjeller, Norway.
At the beginning of Dec. 2011,
the technology was put to a
practical test near Italy's Mount
Etna. Konradin Weber, a professor
of physics and environmental
engineering at the University of
Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf,
Germany, participated in the tests
with his team on board a propeller
plane that flew into an ash cloud
to analyze the particles with its
laser spectrometer.
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