Flying into volcanic ash
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Abdullah Mohibuddin
LAST Thursday (April 15), the news about volcanic ash erupting from a volcano in Iceland dominated the broadcasting of both BBC and CNN.
As the wind at high altitude blows from west to east, immediately, the Civil Aviation Authority of Britain closed the air space. All flights to and from Britain airports were suspended. Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all countries in Europe followed suit, closing their airspace shortly after.
Volcanic ash caused 300 flight cancellations alone in London Heathrow airport almost immediately. London Heathrow alone handles over 1200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day.
By Friday afternoon, a total 17,000 flights were cancelled allover in Europe. What a colossal loss for the airlines and airports, and now think about the woes of the passengers stranded at the airports!
Most of the passengers do not know about this volcanic ash and its impact in airspace and to the aircraft flying through it.
Almost 15 years back, Qantas Airlines cockpit crew encountered volcanic ash for the first time. It was a B747 Jumbo jet aircraft. They were flying from Sydney to Singapore. They did not know what it was about, but the captain and his crew managed to handle the aircraft well. They first noticed a sharp increase of the exhaust temperature of all four engines. Within a few seconds, all engines had ceased. They could not do anything at that high altitude. As all engines had stopped, they had to descend rapidly. They were able to restart one engine at 16,000 feet. Fortunately, they managed to land at the nearest airport safely with all passengers, but with a heavily damaged aircraft. That was a real-life experience.
Following that incident, we all crew started to practise this volcanic ash drill in the Flight Simulator training. This training has helped the airline crew all over the world. People assume that today's modern aircraft are equipped with radar and computers to detect such a kind of occurrence, but unfortunately, that is not the case. One can encounter unknown incidents such as volcanic ash, micro bust and clear weather turbulence where the crew has to be well trained.
That is why, airline crew go for Flight Simulator training (recurrent training) every six months. This training is not intended to revalidate their licences, but to go through emergency drills.
The SIM training is divided into three parts -- normal, abnormal and emergency procedure. The volcanic ash is handled as an emergency.
Volcanic ash can stay in air space for two years. When the aircraft encounters volcanic ash, the pilots at first notice the abnormal rise of EGT (engine exhaust temperature). Even if the throttles are pulled back, the EGT continues to rise. Then one can smell and notice smoke in the cabin. Once it is established that the aircraft has already encountered the volcanic ash, the immediate step for the pilots is to get out of this volcanic ash by flying 90 degrees against the wind direction and start descending 2000 ft per minute with 280 knots.
After reaching a flight level of 20,000 ft or lower, the pilots try to restart the engine one by one. This is a drill, but no one knows how much damage it can make to the aircraft in real life.
So it was a good idea to suspend all flights and the air space. Let the scientists and meteorologists find out about this volcanic ash and its location, drifting speed and direction and its strength.
Flying is fun, but when unknown real emergency occurs, one has to think about that day.
Flight Simulator training is very useful, but we failed to make understand Biman management the gravity of the situation at some times.
Our Biman flight crew are well trained. Let us keep our passenger safe and happy.
[The writer is a retired DC10 Flight Engineer of Biman- Bangladesh Airlines and former President of Flight Engineers and Navigators Association (FENA)]
LAST Thursday (April 15), the news about volcanic ash erupting from a volcano in Iceland dominated the broadcasting of both BBC and CNN.
As the wind at high altitude blows from west to east, immediately, the Civil Aviation Authority of Britain closed the air space. All flights to and from Britain airports were suspended. Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all countries in Europe followed suit, closing their airspace shortly after.
Volcanic ash caused 300 flight cancellations alone in London Heathrow airport almost immediately. London Heathrow alone handles over 1200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day.
By Friday afternoon, a total 17,000 flights were cancelled allover in Europe. What a colossal loss for the airlines and airports, and now think about the woes of the passengers stranded at the airports!
Most of the passengers do not know about this volcanic ash and its impact in airspace and to the aircraft flying through it.
Almost 15 years back, Qantas Airlines cockpit crew encountered volcanic ash for the first time. It was a B747 Jumbo jet aircraft. They were flying from Sydney to Singapore. They did not know what it was about, but the captain and his crew managed to handle the aircraft well. They first noticed a sharp increase of the exhaust temperature of all four engines. Within a few seconds, all engines had ceased. They could not do anything at that high altitude. As all engines had stopped, they had to descend rapidly. They were able to restart one engine at 16,000 feet. Fortunately, they managed to land at the nearest airport safely with all passengers, but with a heavily damaged aircraft. That was a real-life experience.
Following that incident, we all crew started to practise this volcanic ash drill in the Flight Simulator training. This training has helped the airline crew all over the world. People assume that today's modern aircraft are equipped with radar and computers to detect such a kind of occurrence, but unfortunately, that is not the case. One can encounter unknown incidents such as volcanic ash, micro bust and clear weather turbulence where the crew has to be well trained.
That is why, airline crew go for Flight Simulator training (recurrent training) every six months. This training is not intended to revalidate their licences, but to go through emergency drills.
The SIM training is divided into three parts -- normal, abnormal and emergency procedure. The volcanic ash is handled as an emergency.
Volcanic ash can stay in air space for two years. When the aircraft encounters volcanic ash, the pilots at first notice the abnormal rise of EGT (engine exhaust temperature). Even if the throttles are pulled back, the EGT continues to rise. Then one can smell and notice smoke in the cabin. Once it is established that the aircraft has already encountered the volcanic ash, the immediate step for the pilots is to get out of this volcanic ash by flying 90 degrees against the wind direction and start descending 2000 ft per minute with 280 knots.
After reaching a flight level of 20,000 ft or lower, the pilots try to restart the engine one by one. This is a drill, but no one knows how much damage it can make to the aircraft in real life.
So it was a good idea to suspend all flights and the air space. Let the scientists and meteorologists find out about this volcanic ash and its location, drifting speed and direction and its strength.
Flying is fun, but when unknown real emergency occurs, one has to think about that day.
Flight Simulator training is very useful, but we failed to make understand Biman management the gravity of the situation at some times.
Our Biman flight crew are well trained. Let us keep our passenger safe and happy.
[The writer is a retired DC10 Flight Engineer of Biman- Bangladesh Airlines and former President of Flight Engineers and Navigators Association (FENA)]