Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Thursday 15 April 2010

Iceland closes Britain.

All British airports will be closed from 12pm today as vast plumes of volcanic ash from Iceland forced the cancellation of thousands of flights.
Apparently
'Following the eruption of a volcano in Iceland earlier today, the Met Office have advised airlines that the ash plume may reach UK air space overnight.
Air traffic controllers in Brussels in charge of strategic management of flights across Europe have issued warnings to pilots that all UK airspace is closed for incoming flights until further notice and London airspace will be completely closed between 11am and at least 7pm.
Looking at the pictures it would seem that there's loads and loads of this ash in the atmosphere, but they say
It cannot be seen from the ground as it blowing across Britain around three miles in the sky.
and
'There is uncertainty about the amount of ash released in the eruption, but it is thought that it will only affect aviation. There is no suggestion there will be any ash falling from the sky.'
Pity that, it'd be nice to see what's capable of closing down our airspace.

Looks as if they got it a bit wrong though, because there's at least one plane in the sky above Rigby Town, and it's 12:30. Maybe they're not planning to land anywhere, they can't, can they, not if all the airports are closed.
....

2 comments:

Uncle Marvo said...

Short flights can fly lower. But they won't, because they'll use more fuel, and thus make less PROFIT.

Mrs Rigby said...

True.

We're still getting helicopters and light planes flying over.