Article Tags: Met Office, Richard North, Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre
The decisions that led to the costly shambles of Europe’s airspace being closed for so long go back years.
Examining the protocol followed, the agencies involved and the resources at their disposal, it seems it wasn’t volcanic ash that brought the air industry to its knees but decades of neglect, underfunding, poor planning and layers of bureaucracy behind the Government and Europe-wide response.
This, despite the fact that the ink had barely dried on an international contingency plan drawn up by the ICAO in September 2009.
The disaster may have been natural, but the mishandling was wholly man-made. So what went wrong, and why?
As the ash began creeping from Iceland to the UK the first people in the hot seat were not the air traffic controllers but eight scientists in the Met Office’s London Volcano Ash Advisory Centre (LVAAC).
These specialists, called in only on an emergency basis, provide the aviation industry with forecasts on the spread of the ash and warn pilots of where it is unsafe to fly.
Source: dailymail.co.uk