The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

Question Of The Day For European Airlines.

The scream: A radar image shows the crater of Eyjafjallajokull in southeast Iceland, which looks like the nightmarish face painted by Edvard Munch

As the cloud thickens, some pilots are asking… Why can’t we just fly beneath it?

We have been scared into believing that to fly would be madness, but part of the rationale that is keeping us grounded is an economic equation rather than simple personal safety.

To fly beneath the cloud until clear of it would mean burning more fuel. But not flying at all is surely burning money more swiftly.

Low-flying to simply avoid the danger of ash being sucked into the jet engines is a temporary solution gaining currency on professional pilot’s forum Pprune. One pilot writing there yesterday pointed out: ‘The chances of it even appearing at puddle jumper altitudes is negligible’.

It isn’t just daredevil pilots who are beginning to question the necessity of the current stalemate. Steve Wood, Chief Pilot at Sussex and Surrey Air Ambulance, yesterday described the measures being taken as ‘a complete overreaction’.

Modern jet aircraft engines are amazingly robust. And indeed they must be so. They have to face not only the hazards of bird strikes, but rain, hail and even salt spray on take-off from coastal airports.

All of which can potentially wreak havoc on engines. Furthermore, sand is a common hazard from dust storms and from desert airfields.

Some aircraft are better equipped than others to deal with high-dust conditions, and consultation with aircraft and engine manufacturers might have enabled more precise restrictions to be imposed, rather than a blanket ban.

But a spokesman for NATS admitted: ‘We don’t really deal with particular manufacturers.’ They were more concerned with ‘applying the international regulations’ rather than working on a specific plane-by-plane, make-by-make basis.

The blanket ban under clear blue skies and glorious sunshine is making some wonder whether this ‘one-size-fits-all’ regulation is appropriate to a situation that the regulations did not foresee.

And there will be many among the 200,000 Britons currently stranded abroad, who would be quite happy to take the risk.

In the final analysis, despite the scares, no one has actually been killed in a volcano incident – something which cannot be said for the much more hazardous drive to the airport.

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.