Volcanic Ash: European Crisis Visualization Interface Tool for ATFCM (EVITA)

摘要

The volcanic ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull caused a significant impact on aviation in April and May 2010: more than 100,000 flights were cancelled, more than $ 1.7 billion in lost revenues for airlines, more than 10 million passengers stranded. This event provided a significant insight in the volcanic ash crisis handling and stirred the aviation regulators and other aviation organizations all over the world into action. This order of magnitude of the crisis was caused by the two facts: characteristics of the impacted area on one hand and the closure of a number of airspaces on the other hand. In more detail, the ash cloud, pushed by high-altitude winds, dispersed over areas of very dense traffic flows, like southern U.K., France, the Benelux countries, and Germany. As for the more criticized fact, the closure (or zero rate regulations) of a number of airspaces, the decisions were taken by individual states, for all or parts of the airspace in their jurisdiction based on available information and procedures valid at the time. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Manual on Volcanic Ash [1], in the section dedicated to ash cloud movement forecasting, advises to avoid the zones that are contaminated by volcanic ash: "Unfortunately, at present there are no agreed values of ash concentration which constitute a hazard to jet aircraft engines.... In view of this, the recommended procedure in the case of volcanic ash is exactly the same as with low-level wind shear, regardless of ash concentration — AVOID AVOID AVOID."[1]