Only chaos theorists might not have been too surprised by the repercussions of the eruption of a distant Icelandic volcano, but for the millions caught up in the mayhem caused by April’s mass of flight cancellations, the more common reaction was one of incredulity. Public safety was, of course, the overriding reason for the unprecedented grounding of airliners, the consequences of one losing all engines whilst airborne being unimaginable.

Aero Alliance received a Flight Ops Department Communication (FODCOM) from the CAA on the morning of Thursday 15th April and it gave confirmation of what had been heard on the previous evening’s news, specifically that a cloud of volcanic ash drifting through the atmosphere had caused the closure of UK-controlled airspace, a network of corridors and zones in the skies above us that is controlled by the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) and through which all airliners must fly. Although we also fly outside controlled airspace using Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and could work around this closure, the message from the CAA was clear: there is a risk to aircraft operating in or near the cloud of volcanic dust.

A meeting was hastily convened by our safety officer, Captain Martyn Blunden, to discuss the situation with our two charter pilots. Details of the FODCOM were fed through a risk assessment matrix that is part of our safety management system. We also considered that the highest concentrations of ash were in the upper levels of the atmosphere, well above our normal operating altitude and that, unlike jet engines, our aircraft’s piston engines were fitted with air filters similar to those in cars. We came to the conclusion that we could operate safely under VFR rules, but that we would take the precaution of checking the engines’ air filters every day.  A risk assessment to this effect was filed with the CAA. (Ultimately, no unusual deposits were found in the filters and our pilots actually reported that the engines on the Chieftain appeared to be running better than usual, presumably because of more regular usage!)

On Friday, other European countries, amongst them France, announced that they would follow the UK example and close their airspace and at least one airline cancelled all flights for the next four days. It was becoming clear that the major airlines wouldn’t be able to repatriate stranded passengers very soon and the number of enquiries arriving at Aero Alliance by telephone and via our web site began to increase markedly. In fact, over the weekend, the phone barely stopped ringing. In a small operation such as ours the pilots normally attend to sales, admin and tea-making duties as well as flying but with so many flights to prepare for and undertake, help was required and one of our directors who would normally only work part-time, assumed charge of the office duties. To cope with demand, we also positioned another aircraft to Shoreham and are grateful to our partners, Redhill Charters, for organising this.

Amongst the first of our repatriation flights was for aircrew trying to reach Dublin from London and, at short notice, we repositioned to Blackbushe to collect them for the flight across the Irish Sea. A recurring request was to collect passengers from Paris, but with all Parisian airports closed, our advice was for customers to take a hire car to Le Touquet where we could collect them for the short, 45-minute hop to Shoreham. One such passenger was British marathon runner Mara Yamauchi whose long journey from her training camp in the United States via Madrid, Paris and Le Touquet was well documented on TV and in the press. The organising committee for the London Marathon worked tirelessly to ensure that top runners would make the event on time and we were pleased to read comments by race director, David Bedford, who said that the money “spent on a prop plane from Le Touquet to Shoreham to get Mara in was, I think, pretty good value “.

Mara Yamauchi in front of the Seneca that brought her from Le Touquet  

There were other happy endings, of course. After flights from Boston via Reykjavik, one family found themselves in Copenhagen just as Danish airspace closed completely. We quickly ascertained the location of the nearest open airport which was at Kiel in Germany and we dispatched a Chieftain to collect them from there. Another family, not exactly enjoying their “extended break” in Portugal, were rescued from Madrid on the return leg of a flight to connect two American businessmen with a scheduled service to the United States. All were eventually relieved to be back on home soil.

It would be Thursday 22nd, a day after the majority of European controlled airspace was re-opened, before enquiries returned to normal levels. Although we breathed a collective sigh of relief, we had enjoyed the experience. In five days, our pilots flew more hours than they would normally expect in a couple of months and we saw unprecedented aircraft utilisation levels with the Chieftain often flying over nine hours per day. Our operations desk quickly became adept at organising alternative travel plans for customers and always seemed able to find a “plan B” or “plan C” when airport closures, weather, aircraft availability and other events conspired against us. Finally, and most importantly, we appreciated the understanding and good humour of our customers. Despite some long and harrowing journeys to the points where we could collect them, they were all very appreciative of the efforts we made to get them home.