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Commercial Aviation News

Discussion in 'Commercial & General Aviation' started by Jet News, Aug 2, 2012.

  1. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    We all remembered what happened with the mass disruption in aviation when the other volcano erupted. Let's hope this one behaves itself for a bit longer.
  2. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    RED ALERT - Aviation alert for Iceland

    Official definition:

    "Eruption is imminent or in progress - significant emission of ash into atmosphere likely"

    FL340 Winds
    FL180 Winds

    Upper level winds remain unfavorable for Western Europe for the next five days.

    Note: To keep the winds forecast current, when the link opens press the word 'earth' in the lower left and when the tools pop-up, press 'Now'. To remove the tools press 'earth' once more. You can also use the << and >> tool to jump forward of back in 24 hour increments. You can go forward five days. Accuracy of course degrades as you go forward but still gives useful guidance. You can also jump in 3 hourly increments using the > and < tool.
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2014
  3. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    EARLY REPORT - Visual confirmation of small eruption appearing in last few minutes.


    An update just posted to a well-connected professionally produced volcanology blog has spoken to a helicopter pilot over the area and an eruption is reported to have been visually confirmed.

    No official confirmation as yet.

    Icelandic Met Office helicopter observation confirms ongoing eruption that appears to be small at this time. Keep up with the updates as they come.

    "... This is just a brief update due to the current violent activity at Bárdarbunga. In the last hour the recorded levels of tremor at Bárdarbunga has set a new record. There is as far as I know no recorded dataset that has shown this much tremor, not even during the large 2010 Eyjafjallajökull or the 2011 even larger VEI4 eruption of Grimsvötn. ..."​
  4. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    NOW CONFIRMED ON STATE MEDIA


    Small eruption near Bardarbunga

    Fyrst birt: 23.08.2014 14:22, Síðast uppfært: 23.08.2014 15:00

    A small volcanic eruption has started near Bardarbunga volcano, according to the Icelandic Met Office. All air traffic is now prohibited in a large radius around the volcano. The Met Office has upgraded its alert level to red. A 25 km (16 mi) long dike has formed beneath the surface.

    Authorities say that an evacuation program has been set in motion, but there are currently not enough information to decide whether Kelduhverfi and Oxarfjordur, on the north coast, will be evacutaed. A number of tourists are in the area.

    This story, by the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV), was updated on 23 August 2014, at 14.59 GMT.


    As an indication of the current concern the northern coast is about 125 kms from the current eruption.
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2014
  5. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    In brief: no evidence of volcanic material above ice exists, all activity below ice, melting of ice is occurring but ice up to 600 m thick, earthquakes strong and very numerous, steady escalation at a minimum expected. And yes, significant quiescence not ruled out either.


    Preliminary No-Fly Zone Map (reassessed every two hours)

    "A large part of southeastern Iceland is a no-fly zone due to the eruption in Dyngjujökull glacier. The decision about the no-fly zone is re-estimated every two hours. ... The no-fly zone is approximately 50,000 square kilometres."


    International air traffic not affected

    "... International flights still operate to and from Keflavik International Airport, in spite of the eruption in Dyngjujökull glacier, near Bárðarbunga, which started earlier today. ..."


    Mighty Bardarbunga nuthin' burger.
  6. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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  7. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    Alert level lowered to ORANGE


    "ORANGE: Volcano shows heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption."​


    Update brief:
    No eruption sighted, earthquake activity is significantly more intense than yesterday. Many powerful quakes and as many as five small quakes per second are being observed. These levels have not been seen by career seismologists in Iceland. All energy is so far going into extending and filling a 40 km long fissure complex with an unprecedented quantity of magma. Multiple major magmatic earthquakes are also occurring inside the Bardarbunga caldera. A major eruption sequence is expected to develop. Alert level may change at any time.
  8. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    The FAA has certified Boeing's 787-9 Dreamliner for use with General Electric engines, clearing the way for first deliveries of the aircraft with the engines expected later this month. The 787-9 is a larger version of the original Dreamliner and had already obtained FAA certification with Rolls-Royce engines. The first delivery of that configuration, to Air New Zealand, was in June. An FAA certification document dated Thursday showed both the Rolls and GE engines as approved on the 787-9.

    (Reuters)
  9. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    A magnitude 5.7 earthquake hit Iceland's Bárðarbunga volcano overnight, the biggest since tremors began 10 days ago, but there is still no sign of an eruption, the country's Meteorological Office said. Intense seismic activity at Iceland's largest volcano system has raised worries that an eruption could cause another ash cloud like that from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010 that caused the closure of much of Europe's airspace for six days.

    "There was one event during the night... a magnitude 5.7, the largest in this series," Palni Erlendsson, a geologist at the Met Office said. "Activity is still deep and we see no signs of anything close to the surface." On Sunday, Iceland lowered its warning code for possible volcanic disruption to the aviation industry to orange from red, after concluding that seismic activity had not led to a volcanic eruption under the glacier. Red alert indicates an eruption is imminent or underway with a significant emission of ash likely. Met Office scientists believe the earthquakes are a result of magma flowing out from under the crater of the volcano, causing a change in pressure.

    The migration of magma -- estimated at around 300 million cubic metres (10.6 billion cubic feet) along a 35 kilometre (21 miles) dyke by Icelandic scientists on Monday -- could stop. That should lead to a gradual reduction in seismic activity. But the magma could also reach the surface away from the glacier. This would probably lead to an eruption, but with limited explosive, ash-producing activity, scientists said.

    If the magma reaches the surface under the glacier, that would lead to flooding and possibly an explosive eruption and ash production, they added. An eruption inside the Bárðarbunga caldera is also possible, but scientists say less likely than the other scenarios. "We still can't say whether it will cease, continue like this for a while or erupt. It's impossible to say," Erlendsson said. There have been thousands of smaller quakes over the past week at Bárðarbunga. Areas around the volcano have been evacuated. Bárðarbunga is in a different range to Eyjafjallajökull.

    (Reuters)
  10. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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  11. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    It's become a bit like the proverbial frog in saucepan of water, heat slowly, JFN, eventually it's going to boil but when to jump with the red alerts?

    A volcanology consensus is emerging that this event is showing many signs of developing into a more significant and possibly historic rifting-fissure eruption. At the moment the fissure is moving progressively in the direction of a further very large caldera in the NNW. An author of the Encyclopedia of Volcanism yesterday warned of the possibility of an explosive eruption if these two intersect in coming days. The caldera has a large lake in it. In 2010 vulcanologists researching the disappearance of ice in the lake alerted to the rising possibility of renewed eruption in the near future. It has fresh hot magma in it and in the last two days the flourish of earthquakes has occurred all around it as well.

    The last large explosive ash eruption in Iceland occurred from Askja in 1875, which triggered to a mass migration to America of many Icelanders and many towns and villages were buried, with heavy ash falls in Norway and Sweden. So a significant higher level hazard will emerge in the next few days if the current trend of migration NNW continues.

    Yesterday a magnitude 4.6 quake occurred in the fissure and an incredibly violent mag 5.2 a few hours ago, also within the narrow fissure. So plenty of magma is in the system and is moving up fast. In a tectonic fissure eruption the crust itself is slowly splitting open down to the mantle (last occurred in 1477 and 1783-84 major eruptions) and the magma is not so much doing the work of opening the rocks, as just rushing under pressure into the opening that is being driven by the mantle below separating it. These events tend to erupt after the opening stops, as the increase in chamber size as it opens means the volume of it rises so the magma can not keep up to fill it, until the spreading stops. When the extension of the walls moving apart stops the magma may (emphasis on may) rise to the surface and erupt, along as much as a 20 to 30 km long fissure (25 km in 1783 Laki eruption which was much worse than the 1875 event). There is keen professional interest in examining each piece of data to determine how far it may widen, and how long the intrusion may become.

    The other implication is that historically a major rift opening in one area leads to similar rifting and eruptions of volcanoes in adjacent areas, within a few years, with a cascade effect that plays out over 50 to 100 years until if goes 'quiet' again.

    As of today there are multiple volcanoes in the central Iceland area that are showing abnormal earthquake activity under them and significant ground deformation movements, and there is substantial displacement spreading being recorded across the fissure as of now, up to 44.5 cm (18 inches) of spreading (not yet open) at the surface. As the GPS measuring sensors are widely spaced apart, volcanologists have pointed out that the real extension of crust near the spreading will be much larger than measured, and have estimated that the actual spreading distance at the surface above this growing intrusion system will be about 1.35 m, currently.

    One to one point five meters of displacement is considered a normal separation at the beginning of a rift-fissure event, which then grows rapidly open during the active phase of the eruption sequence, to an opening of up to 20 meters wide, with up to 4,500 ft high magma fountains (as during 1783-84).

    With this projected current 1.35 m opening of the crust, the current magma volume is estimated to be as much as 1.05 cubic km (unofficial). To give some context for the scale of this magma, the earth emits, on land, about that much annually, from all active erupting volcanoes - combined! Three days ago the official magma estimate was one third of this quantity. The 1783 eruption emitted about 10 cubic km of material over 9 months, but this 1 cubic km has accrued in just 10 days.

    The magmatic activity recorded continues to increase - no sign of easing - the fissure swarm is already longer than that of the 1783 eruption. We may be seeing the preparatory stage to a once in 500 year eruption. It has been about 537 years since this same area of Iceland's crust had a large rift-fissure eruption.

    In the last 6 hours many very powerful earthquakes are occurring - eruption could occur at any time. Indeed a mag 5.2 occurred just 4 hours ago immediately north east of Askja caldera (the first big one there), and many quakes are now occurring to the immediate SE, E and N of Askja where it appears the tensional split is most likely to propagate, over the next several days. That area is an extraordinarily torn-up field of former dense-packed major rift fissure complexes. 1960s astronauts were trained in the area due to the dense packed barren craters in the area.

    There are on-going powerful mag 5 level quakes in the Bardarbunga area as well in the last few hours. Due to the fracture spreading opening, allowing more magma to rise without over-pressuring the network, early, it's taking longer to pressurize and actually get to the surface and erupt. Everyday the quakes escalate in magnitude, and the radius of area involved is significantly increasing.

    If this is a riff fissure eruption it may be a significant aviation issue for several years and will have to be regularly responded to as periodic red alerts are issued. When the possibility of a riff-fissure eruption was first being broached, a volcano expert blurted out (paraphrased), "If that happens, forget about flying for six months".

    To give you an idea of why that would be, please see this graphic, produced by a professional geological hazards expert, to demonstrate to the general public the scale of the 1783 Laki rift-fissure eruption's lava fountains. Obviously the thermals and entrained water in that sort of event would go into the upper troposphere. This entire eruption sequence lasted about 9 months (waxing and waning), with sympathetic adjacent eruptions lasting for years.

    In other words, if we see one or more extremely powerful caldera eruptions during the next week, this would still not necessarily be the main event sequence, but just preparatory throat-clearing eruptions to a much larger area extrusion sequence.

    The current situation (lake with green star is Askja Caldera)
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2014
    Jet News likes this.
  12. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    All we have to do is know how it will affect aviation if it did erupt. Already, we have seen that some aviation in that area have been keeping far in their flight plans.
  13. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    Warning level remains ORANGE.
    "ORANGE: Volcano shows heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption."​


    UPDATE: Rapid developments continue.

    Confirmed visual cracking and slumping, indicating sub-surface undermining has just been detected directly above the earthquake swarm in the open land to the NNW free of glacier ice. Early interpretation is of disturbance due extension of the crust, at depth. The rough landscape is showing signs of added stretching which is causing visible deep cracks and rotational slumping. Radar imagery and photo recon was conducted by Icelandic Coastguard aircraft today and the result has been reported on Icelandic State RUV media outlet about an hour ago.

    Separately, during the past 12 hours, it's become clear from GPS sensor position tracks that high rates of divergence are present in the area's crust. A large area of crust around 100 km long in the central volcanic zone has been detected to be moving apart along line SW to NE, beginning just SE of Bardarbunga caldera and passing immediately east of Askja caldera. The divergence movement on this approximate line is now visible in data logs of multiple CGPS geodetic positioning sensors that are deployed either side of that approximate trend line, which corresponds with the magma intrusion.

    The divergence began to appear around the 22nd of August after 6 days of quakes, and has gotten steadily wider since then. The widening is seen to accelerate with periods of heavy seismic activity and coincides with slow continuous horizontal and vertical crustal pulsations shown on sensors. The propagation of the magma NW has almost stalled during today as it has on two previous days due to structural obstacles in the crust. The crustal divergence is weakening and opening this crust along the main line of advance to the NNW. The earthquakes are observed to come in distinct pulses of approximately 10 hours duration of larger quakes followed by another ten hours of smaller quakes, but about the same number. There are around 1,000 quakes per day, +/- 100.

    English translated version here

    "... This does not necessarily mean that magma is on his way to the surface," says Paul. "But this, however, is probably the place where the divergence is greatest in soil layers beneath the surface, where the dynamic progress is to penetrate the north, and the signs of the surface bear witness to what is going on beneath the surface. ..."

    It is expected the currently stymied movement will resume northward with the next surge of stronger quakes later today.
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2014
  14. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    Multiple parallel SW to NE cracks, each as much as 6 miles long have been discovered. These are clearly visible from thousands of feet above, both in open ground and on glacial ice to the SE of Bardarbunga, and directly south of Askja. Large depressions are appearing under ice to the SW of Bardarbunga, indicative of melting.

    Unclear whether the eruption has begun - RUV


    The situation is described as very serious by seismologists and vulcanologists who fear a multiple caldera volcano and fissure eruption sequence may be developing.
  15. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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  16. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    Reports coming in sighted from before last light of four 1 km across "caldron" depressions in the icesheet and multiple ring-cracks around them. The GPS location plots to the South Eastern Rim of the Bardarbunga Caldera. No confirmed eruption observed as yet, ice is melting fast in the area.

    Looks like that mag 5.7 finally did the job.
  17. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    This morning's Webcam surprise at the neighboring 'Kverkfjoll' twin-caldera, 30 km ENE of Bardarbunga caldera.


    The camera is facing directly WSW toward Bardarbunga (high-res terrain map of the entire area with the local names). We now have a total of four inter-connected major calderas showing clear signs of preeruption seismic and visible heating, with ice melt. Several parallel approximately 10 km SW to NE cracks were imaged in the old lava and ash situated about 15 km south of Askjar caldera, and these are clearly visible in high-res imagery from what appears to be about 20,000 ft ASL fly-by altitude. Escalation continues at multiple magmatic eruptive centers. A fifth adjacent major volcano, Grimsvotn caldera (responsible for at least 50% of Iceland's known eruptions) is known to be interconnected via two further fissure networks, with Bardarbunga and Kverkfjoll under thick ice. This fifth caldera has been demonstrating worrying abnormal behavior for about a week, especially a cyclic vertical movement indicating rapid magma inflation (few quakes so far but sympathetic harmonic tremor has been present).

    Essentially, almost every volcano in the central volcanic icesheet area, and several adjacent centers are showing some sign of magma rise and significant earthquake activity, near to or under them.

    Warning alert level Orange.
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2014
  18. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    Aviation Alert Update:


    Askja Caldera has been raised to YELLOW alert, from green


    Bardarbunga Caldera remains on ORANGE alert, with recon currently occurring
  19. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    AVIATION RED ALERT - LARGE RADIUS BARDARBUNGA VOLCANO


    "RED: Eruption is imminent or in progress - significant emission of ash into atmosphere likely."

    ERUPTION IS IN PROGRESS


    A visible fissure eruption has just begun to emerge from the Bardarbunga complex. It is 1:30 AM local at time of this writing.




    A YELLOW alert remains in place for Askja Caldera


    Update: A composite image of daytime view with recent nightime image of eruption overlaid, so location is now identified as being in the fissure complex near the large recent cracks, or about the midpoint between Bardarbunga and Askja Calderas. Camera is about 60 km distant.

    Update 2: A new view shows spreading of the activity with some ash present. No high ash cloud is visible at 2:40 AM local. The eruption began some time around 10 minutes past midnight local Icelandic time. Another new image shows multiple parallel linear fissures, and vents along them, opening up at this time.


    Last edited: Aug 28, 2014
  20. gogglezon

    gogglezon Member

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    High res early morning close-up photo reveals ruptured ground with a new rift fissure and the heat has now declined, with only steam emitting. There is quake activity under the end of the glacier tongue to the south suggesting melt water may flood this whole area in the coming days.

    Aviation alert remains RED, activity is expected to gradually escalate, possibly suddenly, no ash hazard for the present.

    Would be terrific if this remains a non-event.