Page 16 - Amount St News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Does, this turns into a sort of molten glass which then comes out of the back of this engine and there it starts cooling and choking the engine. the dust is also very abrasive so it can do damage simply by flying through it. the bottom line is once that happens the plane can simply lose control and be unable to safely land and do much of anything. we've never lost a plane this way, but there have been planes that have flown into volcanic dust and had very severe problems. now, when will all this be over? that's a really good question. we don't really know. what we do know is back in 1980 mount...

>> that's right. maybe some remember back with mount st. helens, flights were diverted away from the pacific northwest because the threat posed when volcanic ash gets into the engine. >> foreign object damage happens and it will clog up the engine just like trying to drive a jet ski through sand or a car through a muddy river. it's going to jam them up and these particles adhere to the controls and the moving parts within the engine. >> folks on the ground have to be careful. they're warning europeans to stay inside. concern is lung damage but not everybody thinks the threat is serious. >> she...

European flights until tomorrow at the earliest. the country is in red have closed their airspace entirely. the ones in yellow have partial closures. heathrow in london and charles in paris both shut. passengers are stranded all over the world from san francisco to singapore. >> it's an absolute nightmare. nobody tells you anything. >> since this is technically an act of god, airlines are not required to refund passengers' money or put them up in hotels, though some are. in 1980 when mount st. helens erupted flights were diverted from that airspace too. this time around nobody is taking chance...

Out of the sky. this is nothing to be -- you have to take this seriously. doesn't happen very often. it happened at mount st. helens and mt. pinatubo where planes couldn't fly anywhere where the volcano. >> i want you to listen to a little clip from the pilot who through a volcanic plume back in 1982. listen to this -- >> we were going from perth in western australia, not a very long flight. a very, very dark night. we got across java over the southeast of the indian ocean, and we got this effect of st. elmo's fire around the airplane, which is not unusual, but usually happens in mist or fog o...

There was another volcano that freed gases that turned into smog, smog floated across the jet stream changing weather patterns. crop production fell in western europe, famine spread, fiery sunsets were seen. then 1784 the winter was one of the longest and coldest on record in north america. new england, record stretch of below-average temperatures. on it went, john. is this actually possible again? >> oh, sure. it's going to happen again, you know, and, in fact, as i mentioned tambora happened in the 1815-1816, and you can expect this to happen because, frankly, water and volcanos don't mix. i...