Iceland volcano

[Helen Reyes]

...German Transportation Minister Peter Ramsauer (CSU) told Germany's Der Spiegel, "... Berlin as other European governments are bound to the international regulations regarding volcano eruptions and the estimates of the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London." The citation of 'London' by a responsible EU transportation minister is itself a bit puzzling as VAAC is in Exeter, not in London....

At first they were calling it EU regulations, but there are none: national airspace is clearly left to the national member-states to close or open as they see fit.

Later, lack of European experience with volcanoes was cited for the overreaction. This clearly isn't true, Mt. AEtna on Sicily goes off regularly. I saw the excuse aired on the media that prevailing winds carry AEtna's ash away from the continent. I don't believe it. I've heard so many times about sand from the Sahara seasonally blowing dust into Italy that I actually believe it must be true.

Later I heard a female spokesperson for the EU Commission talking about reopening airspace on a limited basis, 10% per day, with "safe corridors" through the ash no one has seen. This sounds reasonable on its face, except that it isn't really. Either it's too dangerous to risk the lives of any passengers, or it is not. It clearly is not. This "easing up" only proves there was a hidden agenda, to my mind.

whatreallyhappened.com is the perfect website for consulting on matters volcanic. Mike Rivero lives in Honolulu and knows a fair bit about volcanoes from first-hand experience, and is no dummy when it comes to geology and tectonic theory. According to him, the only time volcanic ash ever grounded flights was briefly after Mt St Helens deposited from six inches to several feet of ash over the landscape, and made some of the towns downwind in Washington state dark at noon. Rivero says there have been a few cases of planes running into volcanic ash clouds unexpectedly at night and the flight crews have had to make evasive manoeuvres because ash will really clog jet engines in sufficient concentrations. Oh, and Mike Rivero is also a big fan and user of flight simulators for many years now. I tend to take him seriously when it comes to volcanoes and aricraft.

If you can't see the ash, it isn't thick enough to worry about. If you can see it, you fly around it, as you would a particularly nasty thunderhead.

What was behind their co-opting the Icelandic volcano to close most EU airspace? Were they looking for UFOs, or missiles, or contemplating a nuclear strike? Was it merely to annoy air travellers? Bankrupt airlines? Scare people? Limit CO2 emissions? Was there "hard intel" Arab Islamic fanatics were planning to hijack planes using exacto knives and fly them into the Bundestag?

One thing the artificial crisis demonstrated was that dependence on air travel has reached a crisis situation. There just isn't any way to book passage on ships anymore, except for a few ferries operating here and there in the EU. Why is travel by ship almost a thing of the past, while airlines are continuously on the edge of bankruptcy? Something doesn't make sense here.