At a little after 4 AM this morning Mount Augustine erupted and send an ash cloud 30,000 feet into the air. It looks like the ash cloud is going to stay to the east of Anchorage so hopefully the impact where I live will be minimal. As you know, volcanic ash clouds have had some pretty negative consequences in Alaska - not only do they clog air filters and ruin machinery, there was an instance about ten years ago of an airliner flying through an ash cloud and losing power. The pilot was able to do an emergency restart but only after the plance full of passengers had plummeted from 26,000 feet to less than 3,000, and the engines were a complete loss and had to be replaced before the plane was put back into service. You can read about the latest activity and track the ash cloud
here.
# posted by Alaska Steve @ 12:22 PM
At a little after 4 AM this morning Mount Augustine erupted and send an ash cloud 30,000 feet into the air. It looks like the ash cloud is going to stay to the east of Anchorage so hopefully the impact where I live will be minimal. As you know, volcanic ash clouds have had some pretty negative consequences in Alaska - not only do they clog air filters and ruin machinery, there was an instance about ten years ago of an airliner flying through an ash cloud and losing power. The pilot was able to do an emergency restart but only after the plance full of passengers had plummeted from 26,000 feet to less than 3,000, and the engines were a complete loss and had to be replaced before the plane was put back into service. You can read about the latest activity and track the ash cloud here.
