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An ash cloud from Iceland's spewing volcano halted
air traffic across a wide swathe of Europe on Thursday, grounding
planes on a scale unseen since the 2001 terror attacks as
authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the
Nordic countries.


      Thousand of flights were canceled, stranding tens of thousands
of passengers, and officials said it was not clear when it would be
safe enough to fly again.


      In a sobering comment, one scientist in Iceland said the
ejection of volcanic ash - and therefore possible disruptions in
air travel - could continue for days or even weeks.


      With the cloud drifting south and east across Britain, the
country's air traffic service banned all non-emergency flights
until at least 7 a.m. (0600GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) Friday. Irish
authorities closed their air space for at least eight hours, and
aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland took
similar precautions.


      The move shut down London's five major airports including
Heathrow, a major trans-Atlantic hub that handles over 1,200
flights and 180,000 passengers per day. Airport shutdowns and
flight cancellations spread across Europe - to France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland -
and the effects reverberated worldwide.


      Airlines in the United States were canceling some flights to
Europe and delaying others. In Washington, the Federal Aviation
Administration said it was working with airlines to try to reroute
some flights around the massive ash cloud.


      Flights from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Heathrow and
other top European hubs were also put on hold.


      The volcano's smoke and ash poses a threat to aircraft because
it can affect visibility, and microscopic debris can get sucked
into airplane engines and can cause them to shut down. The plume,
which rose to between 20,000 feet and 36,000 feet (6,000 meters and
11,000 meters), lies above the Atlantic Ocean close to the flight
paths for most routes from the U.S. east coast to Europe.

BIGGEST AIR TRAFFIC DISRUPTION SINCE 9/11

      It was not the first time air traffic has been halted by a
volcano, but such widespread disruption has not been seen the Sept.
11, 2001 terror attacks.


      "There hasn't been a bigger one," said William Voss, president
of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation, who praised aviation
authorities and Eurocontrol, the European air traffic control
organization, for closing down airspace. "This has prevented
airliners wondering about, with their engines flaming out along the
way."


      At Heathrow, passengers milled around, looking at closed
check-in desks and gazing up at departure boards listing rows of
cancellations.


      "It's so ridiculous it is almost amusing," said Cambridge
University researcher Rachel Baker, 23, who had planned to meet her
American boyfriend in Boston but got no farther than Heathrow.


      "I just wish I was on a beach in Mexico," said Ann Cochrane,
58, of Toronto, a passenger stranded in Glasgow.


      The National Air Traffic Service said Britain had not halted all
flights in its space in living memory, although most flights were
grounded after Sept. 11. Heathrow was also closed by fog for two
days in 1952.


      In Iceland, hundreds of people have fled rising floodwaters
since the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted Wednesday for the
second time in less than a month. As water gushed down the
mountainside, rivers rose up to 10 feet (3 meters) by Wednesday
night, slicing the island nation's main road in half.


      The volcano still spewed ash and steam Thursday, but the floods
had subsided. Some ash was falling on uninhabited areas, but most
was being blown by westerly winds toward northern Europe, including
Britain, about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) away.

      "It is likely that the production of ash will continue at a
comparable level for some days or weeks. But where it disrupts
travel, that depends on the weather," said Einar Kjartansson, a
geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office. "It depends
how the wind carries the ash."

      The ash cloud did not disrupt operations at Iceland's Keflavik
airport or caused problems in the capital of Reykjavik, but has
affected the southeastern part of the island, said meteorologist
Thorsteinn Jonsson. In one area, visibility was reduced to 150
meters (yards) Thursday, he said, and farmers were advised to keep
livestock indoors to protect them from eating the abrasive ash.


      In Paris, all flights north were canceled until midnight. In
Copenhagen, spokesman Henrik Peter Joergensen said some 25,000
passengers were affected.


      "At the present time it is impossible to say when we will
resume flying," Joergensen said.


      Eurostar train services to France and Belgium and cross-Channel
ferries were packed as travelers sought ways out of Britain. P&O
ferries said it had booked a passenger on its Dover-Calais route
who was trying to get to Beijing - he hoped to fly from Paris
instead of London.

BRIEF HISTORY OF ASH-INDUCED TRAVEL PROBLEMS

      The U.S. Geological Survey says about 100 aircraft have run into
volcanic ash from 1983 to 2000. In some cases engines shut down
briefly after sucking in volcanic debris, but there have been no
fatal incidents.


      Kjartansson said until the 1980s, airlines were less cautious
about flying through volcanic clouds.


      "There were some close calls and now they are being more
careful," he said.


      In 1989, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 flew into an ash
cloud from Alaska's Redoubt volcano and lost all power, dropping
from 25,000 feet to 12,000 feet (7,500 meters to 3,600) before the
crew could get the engines restarted. The plane landed safely.


      In another incident in the 1980s, a British Airways 747 flew
into a dust cloud and the grit sandblasted the windscreen. The
pilot had to stand and look out a side window to land safely.


      Last month's eruption at the same volcano occurred in an area
where there was no glacial ice - lessening the overall risk.
Wednesday's eruption, however, occurred beneath a glacial cap. If
the eruption continues, and there is a supply of cold water, the
lava will chill quickly and fragment into glass.


      If the volcano keeps erupting, there's no end to the flight
disruptions it could cause.


      "When there is lava erupting close to very cold water, the lava
chills quickly and turns essentially into small glass particles
that get carried into the eruption plume," said Colin Macpherson,
a geologist with the University of Durham. "The risk to flights
depends on a combination of factors - namely whether the volcano
keeps behaving the way it has and the weather patterns."


      Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic
hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge, and has a history of
devastating eruptions.


      The worst was the 1783 eruption of the Laki volcano, which
spewed a toxic cloud over Europe with devastating consequences. At
least 9,000 people, a quarter of the population of Iceland, died,
many from the famine caused by the eruption, and many more
emigrated. The cloud may have killed more than 20,000 people in
eastern England and an estimated 16,000 in France.

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Ash from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air
traffic across a wide swathe of Europe on Thursday, grounding
planes on a scale not seen since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe

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