Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
Good luck to whoever is going up - I hope they get back ok.
I suppose they have special planes to deal with these type of situations, like they do for flying through hurricanes.
Sun is going down, but no atmospheric display so far.  |
If they are using a turboprop with a well-screened intake, that might help, although you of course run the risk of the intake clogging and thus killing the engine. Brief encounters with ash aren't going to destroy a jet engine right away, so a short flight at slow speeds (to limit the damage to windshields, etc.) wouldn't be all that big of a problem. It's the large turbofan jets flying at typical cruise speeds that suffer the most damage from ash from even mild encounters with ash.
British Airways Flight 9 Jakarta ash encounter is a good read.