EasyJet trials ash detector
- Latest News
- Tuesday, 08 June 2010
EasyJet, which said it suffered losses of around GBP75 million when Europe's airspace was closed following the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in April and May aims to be the first airline to trial a new device called the "Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector" (AVOID).
The system uses infra-red technology to detect volcanic ash up to 60 miles away.
It gives pilots real-time intelligence on ash - in a way similar to current weather warning technologies.
Experts say, however, that while identifying the likelihood of ash a few miles ahead of the plane is valuable, in Europe's crowded skies a plane cannot simply change course to avoid it.
They say at any given time, with a large number of planes in the air, air traffic controllers don't really want to be running ad-hoc ash avoidance manoeuvres that make it necessary to have a number of aircraft change routes to avoid not just the ash, but each other.
