The volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland erupted last Wednesday and has been spewing ash and magma since then. Because of all of the ash, almost all flights going to and from Europe had to be cancelled. The volcano had been dormant for about two hundred years, although luckily the are surrounding the volcano is very sparsly populated.
Because of this volcano, millions of people have been left stranded at airports, and airport hotels for days. While the airlines are trying to make it up to their passengers by waiving their check in and baggage fees, that is a small benefit to receive in comparison to being stuck somewhere, especially for those people trying to get home to a job or their family. British Airways has reportedly lost over two and a half billion dollars since the eruption and that amount continues to soar.
Although engineers have not done extensive tests to see what would happen if a plane flew through ash, from what they have seen and experimented they can safely concur that it would not be safe. Michael Fabain said of that situation, "Don't go there if you don't know". One theory engineers have is that the ash would block the air flow in the engine's turbines and cause them to shut down.
Grace - make a specific reference to the article or text you read. Remember, one of our goals is to identify the types of texts we're reading for this assignment.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who was traveling to the north pole when this eruption happened, he said he was grounded for a week before he was able to make any progress on his trip. Do you think trains made alot more profit when this happened?
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