Lack of planning kept airspace shut

WHEN the volcanic ash cloud covered much of Europe, the only option was to shut down the airspace, because nobody knew what else to do.

What rules there were about such an event were devised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a UN body, after all engines of a British Airways jumbo jet lost power when it flew through a volcanic ash cloud in Indonesia in 1982, killing all on board. It basically said that pilots should avoid volcanic ash clouds.

The other part of the exercise was a computer programme that forecast how such a cloud would move and when it would disperse. This map is in the control of the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre based in the Met Office in London, one of several such centres around the world.