Eyjafjallajokull calling

According to UK’s Daily Mail,

Britain’s airspace was closed under false pretences, with satellite images revealing there was no doomsday volcanic ash cloud over the entire country.

Leaving aside the sloppy language of ‘false pretences’ and ‘doomsday’, one of the key revelations is that:

Evidence has emerged that the maximum density of the ash was only about one 20th of the limit that scientists, the Government, and aircraft and engine manufacturers have now decided is safe.

The problem with this reporting is it fails to make clear that there was no agreement, prior to the Eyjafjallajokull eruption, on what might constitute ‘safe limits’. Indeed, the aviation industry’s approach to the hazard of volcanic ash has apparently been in disarray for some years.

The body co-ordinating the international response to the spread of volcanic ash has been aware for at least three years of the need for new guidelines setting out the conditions under which aircraft can keep flying after an eruption... It has now emerged that the International Airways Volcano Watch Operations Group, a division of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, discussed three years ago establishing what might constitute “safe” levels of ash for aircraft to fly in. But the aircraft manufacturers were reluctant to talk about the issue.

Perhaps Niki Lauda, Richard Branson, et al, should sue their aircraft’s manufacturers for having dragged their feet on this important matter.

Overall, the international aviation industry has been caught with its pants down due to the inconvenient timing of this eruption. But Eyjafjallajokull’s wake-up call has precipitated some on-the-run decision making which, we can only hope, will prove to be reasonably sound.

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Qantas CEO tries to talk sense into Andrew Bolt

...but to no avail.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, interviewed on Bolt’s radio station regarding the Iceland volcanic ash emergency, has ever-so-politely refused to be sucked into Bolt’s narcissistic moral panic.

Mr Joyce is a brilliant guy and true conservative.

UPDATE 10:30PM

Clearly Alan Joyce was nowhere near sufficiently on message for Bolt’s purposes. In his entire approach to the matter Joyce in fact epitomised the conservatism Bolt farcically claims for himself.

Bolt kept hammering the Niki Lauda quote (“It was one of the biggest mistakes in aviation history to close airspace for a long period without having the right facts and figures”), and tried to goad Joyce into taking a comparable position. Then after Joyce signed off, Bolt had of course to give it one more emphatic run to drive home the meme to which he’s clearly now emotionally committed.

Bolt closed the segment saying that “without a doubt” litigation by international carriers against civil aviation authorities will ensue, which if it eventuates he’ll undoubtedly trumpet as vindication of the crusade he’s whipped up over this.

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Andrew Bolt in bid for more attention, cash, power

It seems Andrew Bolt has decided that the shutdown of European aviation, due to “alarmism” over the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, is intrinsically linked to the global warmalarmist conspiracy.

It’s all somehow connected, don’t you see? Somehow...

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