British Airways Flight 9: Volcanic Ash Crisis Management

Introduction: Volcanic Ash and Aviation Risk

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers report entitled Volcanic Ash: To Fly or Not to Fly? states that the prediction of "ash movement and dispersal has become more sophisticated over the years. In the UK, the Met Office uses the Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modeling Environment (NAME) computer model, developed after the Chernobyl accident in 1986" (Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 2010, p. 3). This model is reported to have tracked various atmospheric dispersion events, with the purpose of predicting "how far and how concentrated emitted particles will be dispersed, using a number of factors, such as wind, rainfall and particle size" (Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 2010, p. 3).

On June 24, 1982, a British Airways 747-200, Flight 009, near Jakarta, Indonesia, ran into serious trouble when the crew inadvertently flew into a volcanic ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in west Java. The ash caused severe damage to all four engines, and the aircraft briefly lost all flying power. The crew was able to restart the engines after the plane glided clear of the dust cloud, and they made an uneventful landing in Jakarta. None of the 15 crew members or 247 passengers were injured.

Captain Eric Moody's Perspective on Modern Aviation

Captain Eric Moody writes that the airline pilot's job in the earlier days of civil aviation was one "in which character, skills, and a dogged ability to stick to the task under extreme pressure, were tested on an almost daily basis. Weather forecasting was rudimentary; navigation was based on fleeting glimpses of railway lines through ragged cloud and accurate landings on an ability to discern a dim line of gooseneck flares. These aircraft were subject to frequent technical failure and the engines had to be nursed with the sensitivity of old stagecoach drivers handling an inexperienced team of four. Those who learned their trade during the war came through an even more deadly and unforgiving school" (Moody, 1986, p. 1).

However, Moody states that pilots of his generation "sit in air-conditioned comfort, with reliable engines, navigating errors measured in yards rather than miles on aircraft which can handle themselves, smoothly and accurately, in almost impenetrable fog" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). He writes that his generation of pilots is the first "who may go through a whole career without having a genuine emergency; many pilots have completed fifteen years of flying without having suffered an engine failure" (Moody, 1986, p. 1).

BA Flight 009: The Incident Unfolds

British Airways Flight 009 was carrying 247 passengers along with 91,000 kg of fuel on a flight to Perth. The night was "moonless, but clear and the flying conditions were smooth" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). The weather forecast was good, and the crew expected "an uneventful flight lasting 5 hours" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). The crew had eaten their meal and settled into the cruise at 37,000 feet. Moody took "a quick look at the area ahead of the aircraft with the weather radar and picked up nothing more interesting than returns from the surface of the sea. He made his way aft and found that the crew toilet was occupied. He descended the stairs to the first class area and started a conversation with the forward purser. Almost immediately he was called to the flight deck by the stewardess" (Moody, 1986, p. 1).

As Moody climbed the stairs, he noticed "puffs of smoke billowing out from the vents at floor level and a smell which he described as 'acrid or ionized electrical' such as one finds near sparks from electrical machinery" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). When Moody entered the flight deck, he found the windscreens "alive with what appeared to be the most intense display of St. Elmo's Fire he had ever experienced" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). He strapped himself into his seat and examined the weather radar again.

During Moody's brief absence from the flight deck, the other two crew members "had put on the seat belt signs and the engine igniters" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). It is noted that the slow build-up of danger meant that the crew "were not plunged instantly into an extreme situation. They became more alert and concentrated as the incident became more complex and at no time lost control of their reasoning processes" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). They were soon confronted with the full scale of the emergency when the Flight Engineer announced: "Engine failure number 2 … Three's gone … They've all gone!" (Moody, 1986, p. 1).

Moody had undergone training for a four-engine failure scenario on a simulator a few months earlier, with the assumption that "all generators would fail, leaving the aircraft on standby electrical power, fed from the aircraft batteries. This would have caused a failure of the co-pilot's instrumentation and much of the cockpit lighting. Yet the instrumentation all appeared to work and the autopilot remained in control" (Moody, 1986, p. 1). The engine displays — a mix of Smiths and General Electric instruments — showed a combination of frozen readings and needles dropping off the scale, while amber lights indicated that the engines had exceeded their maximum turbine gas temperatures. At the Flight Engineer's suggestion, Moody set the autopilot into a gentle descent and instructed the co-pilot to issue a Mayday call.