Airborne volcanic ash prompted the cancellation of Alaska Airlines flights to Nome and Kotzebue Tuesday and Wednesday. Cargo planes operated by Northern Air Cargo and Lynden Air also cancelled flights, leaving the western Alaska hubs and surrounding villages without fresh groceries and supplies.
The ash plume came from the Klyuchevskoy volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The Anchorage Volcanic Ash Advisory Center issued an advisory Tuesday morning warning air carriers of the ash.
The center’s Warning Coordination Meteorologist, David Kochevar, said it's up to airlines to modify or cancel flights based on the warnings.
“We're really just advising on where the possibility of any volcanic ash is in the atmosphere, and then the airlines are using that information to determine what to do with the flight and any particular community,” Kochevar said.
The advisory was confined to airspace between 15,000 and 35,000 feet above sea level. Regional airline Bering Air typically flies at elevations under 10,000 feet, but cancelled at least 20 flights Tuesday morning due to heavy rain and high wind gusts. Bering Air resumed flights Wednesday morning.
Kochevar said the advisory is important for operators like Alaska Airlines that fly jets at higher altitudes.
“There can be impacts to the instruments on board as well, or scouring of the windscreen. Ash is extremely coarse and able to scour surfaces. So that's one of the big issues,” Kochevar said. “Ashes, when you heat it into a jet engine, it's essentially like glass, it would melt.”
Kochevar said the center would continue issuing advisories as needed to inform airlines on the latest conditions.
“There's a big impact to not getting the morning flight or potentially later flights into the community, but the risk to an engine is very, very high. So most airlines really have a policy to totally avoid any possibility of volcanic ash in the atmosphere for that reason,” he said.
Klyuchevskoy is one of the most active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It erupted shortly after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake sent waves across the Pacific Ocean two weeks ago. It was the sixth strongest earthquake ever recorded.
