Airbus tests ash cloud avoidance system
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Airbus has completed the first major test of a new system designed to help aircraft avoid clouds of volcanic ash.
In tandem with easyJet and the system’s developer, Nicarnica Aviation, the new AVOID sensor concept was fitted to an Airbus A340-300 aircraft and flown towards an artificial ash cloud above the Bay of Biscay. Airbus said the system successfully identified and measured the ash from around 60km away.
The AVOID system was developed following the widespread disruption caused by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010. And according to experts, there is a strong likelihood that such an incident will happen again.
“Explosive volcanic eruptions in Iceland happen on average once every five years. When winds blow from the northwest, the ash is transported towards Europe as it did during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010,” said MagnusTumi Gudmundsson from the Institute of Earth Sciences in Iceland
“Considering the relatively long time since the last eruptions in two of Iceland‘s most active volcanoes, Hekla and Katla, both should be regarded as ready to erupt. It is not possible to predict when or where the next eruption will take place. What is certain is that it will happen.”
easyJet plans to continue AVOID’s development, with a view to mounting standalone units on some of its current fleet of aircraft by the end of 2014.
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