Icelandic volcano eruption grounds flights

A volcanic eruption under Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajokull, forced the closure of the main international airport in Iceland, the second disruption in 13 months to the island nation’s air traffic.


The eruption sent an ash plume more than 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) into the air, causing delays today of some Scandinavian trans-Atlantic flights. “We expect the ash cloud to enter Norwegian airspace over the course of the night,” said Jens Petter Duestad, chief of control centers for Norwegian airport operator Avinor.


Iceland’s Keflavik International Airport was shut down this morning amid fears that the ash plume might damage jet engines. The halt grounded 11 airplanes in Iceland, affecting about 2,000 passengers. Another 13 airplanes will be unable to land in the country.


An eruption began at about 6 p.m. yesterday in a Grimsvotn Lake crater underneath Vatnajokull, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Reykjavik. The volcano is the most active in Iceland and its last eruption ended in 2004.


Eyjafjallajokull’s eruption on April 14, 2010, closed European airspace for six days at a cost of $1.7 billion, according to an estimate then by the International Air Transport Association. Iceland, with about 320,000 inhabitants, is one of the world’s most volcanically and geologically active countries and eruptions are frequent.


Ash soon covered nearby villages and reached the capital, Reykjavik, nearly 400 kilometres to the west. ''It's just black outside, it is supposed to be bright daylight,'' Bjorgvin Hardarsson, a farmer, said.

Iceland's airport administration, Isavia, announced yesterday that the country's main airport, Keflavik, was shutting and basically all the country's air space was closing.
Last year's eruption caused the world's biggest air-space shutdown since World War II, lasting almost a month.