As something of an
"armchair vulcanologist"
myself, following this with great interest. The KLM jet which was damaged in the previous eruption was a
747 which suffered flame-outs of all 4 engines
due to ingestion of volcanic ash into them; the ash
re-melted inside the engines & coated the turbine blades. A National Geographic interview of the pilot said that for a few minutes, he was pilot of
"the world's largest glider!"
He was finally able to restart the engines at lower altitude (@ 5000 ft., if I remember correctly;
NOT a large margin of safety by jet standards!) & land safely (although I understand he had to open a cockpit side window & peer out to land - the windshields had been abraded
beyond visibility from volcanic ash!). It is now
standard practice for the USGS (which handles all volcano monitoring in the US) to inform the FAA of impending eruptions like this,
specifically to re-route aircraft around any potential eruption clouds.
Mt Redoubt is a "grey volcano" similar to Mt. St. Helens; the magma is much thicker than that of "red volcanos" such as Kiluea (the world's most active volcano) in Hawaii, and consequently
far more prone to explosive eruptions. I've visited Kiluea (in Hawaii Volcano's National park) 3 times myself; last time, I was able to get within
20 feet of an active lava flow
(the heat radiating from the flow was like standing near the open door of a
blast furnace!
). Kiluea has had lava appear at the summit for the first time in many years last year - here's a link to a short Quicktime video clip of lava in the new summit crater that opened back in 2008
...
Active Lava Lake at Kiluea Summit
Tom
