Icelandic aviation authorities closed the country's main airports and restricted flights over the island following a volcanic eruption that sent a plume of ash and dust high into the atmosphere.
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Reuters
A cloud of smoke and ash rises from the Grimsvötn volcano Saturday.
The broader impact of the eruption of the Grimsvötn volcano, which began on Saturday, remained unclear. It came slightly more than a year after eruptions of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused chaos as aviation regulators closed roughly 80% of European airspace during the Easter holiday.
Eurocontrol, an umbrella organization for air-traffic control across Europe, said Sunday that it expected "no impact…on European airspace" from the eruption through Monday. In a notice to aviation officials on Eurocontrol's website, the agency said the ash cloud could reach northern Scotland by Tuesday.
The cloud, which on Sunday climbed as high as 10.5 miles, could reach western France and northern Spain on Thursday if the eruption continues with its initial intensity, Eurocontrol warned.
The eruption comes as European and international air-safety regulators have been struggling to establish standards for dealing with volcanic activity. Last month, European Union aviation officials hosted an ash-cloud exercise "to test new procedures" on the anniversary of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.
That event, and European governments' widely varied reactions, showed existing standards to be insufficient. A major problem was that the ash created was much finer than that from most volcanoes, and so traveled much farther. No previous volcano had occurred so near major air routes and had such an impact on global aviation.
Prompted by the massive air-traffic disruptions, regulators, technical experts and industry officials last summer launched a flurry of activity. The International Civil Aviation Organization, an arm of the United Nations, was designated to lead the way to develop the first clear-cut global safety standards for flying through volcanic ash.
A volcano in Iceland sends ash 20 kilometers into the air, European air traffic not affected. Video courtesy Reuters.
Since then, however, some of the effort appears to have become bogged down by engineering, political and institutional complexities, according to people close to the matter. International agreement on a new standard is many months, if not years, away, these people said. An ICAO-sponsored progress meeting is slated for Montreal in late July, focused on permitting airlines to make their own risk assessments.
Even within Europe, old arguments about national authority are slowing progress.
Earlier this month, the European Union's European Aviation Safety Agency issued some preliminary proposals based on international analyses to help carriers and regulators deal with future eruptions. At the same time, the agency asked for comments on whether binding rules should be pursued.
The EASA proposals don't appear set to establish a firm international standard. EASA stressed that individual countries "will not be bound by any part" of the ICAO group's technical analysis and recommendations, "although they may consider that to some extent it should be taken into account."
The push for flexibility comes because the impact of volcanic eruptions varies widely, depending on geology and meteorology. They can produce clouds with huge variations in the size and chemical composition of the ash inside.
Atmospheric testing and modeling for such details remains rudimentary, according to experts, and that makes it hard to develop any coherent safety standards.
Engine-makers and aircraft manufacturers, for their part, continue to balk at proposing specific standards, partly because of liability concerns. But industry officials also have stressed the difficulties of recreating volcanic ash conditions in ground tests.
Some engine makers have said that making engines less susceptible to ash damage also would make them less fuel-efficient—a distasteful option at a time of climbing fuel prices and growing concerns about aircraft emissions of greenhouse gases.
Further complicating the discussions: U.S. carriers, regulators and manufacturers have argued for voluntary and collaborative industry decision-making, rather than imposition of centralized government mandates. For decades U.S. airlines have used ash advisories to make individual decisions on where and when they deemed it safe to fly during eruptions—much the way carriers deal with thunderstorms or other hazardous weather.
As a result, there is significant international study and discussion under way about ash safety standards, but no consensus yet on binding rules.
Because there are huge scientific and engineering uncertainties about potential hazards posed by various types and levels of ash concentrations, the ICAO's high-level task force has proposed a compromise. The experts want to allow airlines to make their own risk assessments about whether to fly in or through ash clouds—but national regulators stil would have to sign off on the methods and procedures carriers relied on to reach those conclusions.
The ICAO group hasn't proposed any numerical standards. Instead, it proposes that carriers pay special attention to determining alternate airports, providing updates on movement of ash clouds, enhancing pilot training, stepping up maintenance and keeping close track of in-flight incidents.
According to the group's draft report, airlines that decide to fly into ash-contaminated areas also should have more stringent standards to ensure all onboard systems are working properly before takeoff.
When it comes to national regulators, the ICAO proposals envision beefed-up oversight. Regulators must require that carriers have "a formal, robust and transparent method" to assess risk, including reliance on an adequate and well-trained staff, according to the ICAO draft report.
Such general guidelines, however, could leave Europe's aviation industry subject to the same haphazard and unpredictable patchwork of flight restrictions as in 2010, according to some safety experts.
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
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