I'm trying to work out if you can be "too cautious" when thinking about flying planes through ash. After all, if you get it wrong it isn't just your ice-cream dropped on the floor is it!
This is one of those "damned if you do and damned if you don't" things. A similar thing happened with the FMD outbreak in 2007. The then CVO was put under massive pressure by the industry to lift movement restrictions, being told that she was too cautious. She responded and lifted the restrictions, only for a new outbreak a week later and further spread of disease.
Now, especially if I was going to be 30000 ft in the air, I would like to think that people WERE being over cautious. It seems all very well saying that the planes can cope with small amounts of ash in the air, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't spread evenly up there. What if there's a thicker cloud of it, the pilot would only know when he hit it. And past experience has shown that ash CAN take engines out. So overall, caution seems a good thing.
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