Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe

AP Reported today: "An ash cloud from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across a wide swath of Europe today, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 2001 terror attacks as authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries.

An aviation expert said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had affected some of the most congested airspace in the world.

The ash plume, which rose to between 20,000 feet and 36,000 feet (6,000 meters and 11,000 meters), lies above the Atlantic Ocean close to the flight paths for most routes from the U.S. east coast to Europe.

With the cloud drifting south and east across Britain, the country's air traffic service banned all non-emergency flights until at least 7 a.m. (0600GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) Friday. Irish authorities closed their air space for at least eight hours, and aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Belgium took similar precautions.

The move shut down London's five major airports including Heathrow, a major trans-Atlantic hub that handles over 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day. Airport shutdowns and flight cancellations spread eastward across Europe — to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland — and the effects reverberated worldwide.

French officials shut down all flights to Paris and 23 other airports.

Airlines in the United States canceed some flights to Europe and delayed others."