Flying into Volcanic Ash Clouds: An Evaluation of Hazard Potential

Abstract

Within the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) internal project VolcATS (Volcanic ash impact on the Air Transport System), the DLR Institute of Flight Systems investigated the impact of volcanic ash on aircraft systems, especially on navigation and communication systems. In order to get a general overview of recent encounters of aircraft with volcanic ash clouds and possible damage to the aircraft, a compilation of known incidents from 2010 through 2016 was created in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Together with the DLR Institute of Flight Guidance, a more detailed analysis for selected incidents was performed by combining both flight trajectories and modeled volcanic ash concentration data. Finally, the database of known incidents from 1953-2009 published by USGS was merged with the new compilation in order to get a unique database of worldwide encounters of aircraft with volcanic ash clouds from 1953-2016.