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1 online resource (streaming video file) (26 min. 44 sec.) ; 162010246 bytes |
| Summary |
Few in the world had heard of it and very few could get close to pronouncing its rolling, rambling tongue-twister of a name. And yet - suddenly and spectacularly - a volcano called Eyjafjallajokull impacted millions of lives and blew away billions of dollars. But did the greatest aviation grounding since WW2 really have to happen? In Iceland, many volcano-mad locals couldn't get close enough to the spectacular show - a rumbling volcano belching thick plumes of ash. Outside Iceland just about anyone with travel plans couldn't get anywhere near their plane seat, certainly nowhere near their destination and they were fuming as well.Eyjafjallajokull might sound like an Icelandic fisherman's curse but it was global travellers who were swearing at this relatively small volcano as most of Europe was grounded and the delays and cancellations dramatically impacted travel plans all around the world.In the history of commercial aviation, it was unprecedented in its scale and cost: billions of dollars burned, millions of passengers stranded.But what if many of those people didn't need to miss their flights? What if the airline industry and European regulators made a massive miscalculation? What if people who study these things had been warning the industry for years that they needed to get a better plan for dealing with just such an event - that it was not a case of if, but when.Eric Campbell investigates the Great Aviation Grounding.In Iceland and elsewhere we meet experts who say it was no surprise to them when ash from the Icelandic volcano disrupted flights and they claim it shouldn't have been a surprise to the airline industry either. They say that for years they've been urging airlines and engine manufacturers to agree on an acceptable ash density that safe for jet airliners to fly through and to establish a coherent plan to deal erupting volcanos. But nobody wanted to know. Even the man who famously wrestled an ash-stalled 747 back from the brink of disaster and got a volcano chapter written into flight manuals as a result said they got it wrong."You have to put practicality into this situation and they didn't do that. They tried a theoretical approach and I'm sorry they were wrong. They didn't know anything about the density and until they send up aircraft to take samples, you'll never know." - Captain Eric Moody, Retired pilot, British Airways.Last year Eric Campbell was in Iceland to examine the appalling financial shenanigans that all but bankrupted the country and shattered finances in parts of neighbouring Europe. Now he's back to examine how an utterly natural event shut down Europe and beyond |
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Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2010-05-25 at 20:00:00 |
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Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Airlines -- Safety measures.
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Flight delays.
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Natural disasters -- Economic aspects.
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Natural disasters -- Planning.
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Volcanic ash, tuff, etc. -- Composition.
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Weather -- Effect of volcanic eruptions on.
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Iceland -- Eyjafjallajokull Volcano.
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Streaming video
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| Author |
Bisignani, Giovanni, contributor
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Campbell, Eric, reporter
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Corcoran, Mark, host
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Gudmundsson, Magnus, contributor
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Moody, Eric, contributor
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Palsson, Asgeir, contributor
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Ragnarsson, Omar, contributor
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Saemundsson, Magnus, contributor
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