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Alice's Adventures in Volcano Land: The Use and Abuse of Expert Knowledge in Safety Regulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Vincent M. Brannigan
Vincent M. Brannigan*
Affiliation:
Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland College Park, Md 20742, [email protected]
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Extract

As a volcano refugee in Frankfurt, it was rather interesting to see a slow motion regulatory science disaster taking place. On April 14 2010 the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted sending millions of tons of ash into the upper atmosphere. The ash cloud, blown by the prevailing winds, moved down over northern Europe. European air traffic authorities, following well established and widely published safety protocols, began shutting down the air transport system due to the well known hazard of volcano ash. The shutdown lasted 6 days and soon became an unequal political contest between airline money on the one side and regulatory science on the other. In a classic case of shooting the messenger bringing bad news the responsible airline parties tried to shift the blame for shutdown to the regulators, while nervous governments quailed before the bullying of the airline executives.

Type
Mini-Symposium on the Volcanic Ash Crisis
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 107 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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9 “5th International Workshop on Volcanic Ash Report”, supra note 7.

10 Available on the Internet at <http://www.ge.com/audio_video/ge/innovation/leslie_mcvey_on_volcanic_ash_and_jet_engines.html>.

11 See <http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15952464>.

12 Fourth Meeting of the International Airways Volcano Watch Operations Group (IAVWOPSG), Paris (France), 15–19 September 2008.

13 World Meteorological Organization, 4th International Workshop on Volcanic Ash, Rotorua (New Zealand), 26–30 March 2007.

14 Fourth Meeting of the International Airways Volcano Watch Operations Group (IAVWOPSG), supra note 12, emphasis added.

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17 See <http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100424/WEEKENDER/704239842/1299>.

18 See <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/19/eyjafjallajokull-volcano_n_542411.html>.

19 See <http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/04/26/the-volcano-thatchoked-a-continent/>.

20 See <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63I4S420100419>.

21 Pieri, D., Ma, C., Simpson, J. J., Hufford, G., Grindle, T. and Grove, C., “Analyses of in-situ airborne volcanic ash from the February 2000 eruption of Hekla Volcano, Iceland”, 16 Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 29, 10.1029/2001GL013688, 2002, p. 1767 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/25/volcanic-ashair-industry-warned>.

23 See <http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/awst/2010/05/03/AW_05_03_201_p46-223035.xml&headline=EuropeanAuthoritiesWorkingToExpediteAirTrafficReform>.

24 See <http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0428/1224269220876.html>.

25 Servranckx and Chen, supra note 13.

26 See <http://www.pwc.ca/en/service-support/engine-operation-in-volcanic-ash>.

27 Supra note 23.