Alaska Volcano Could Disrupt Anchorage Cargo Traffic

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Redoubt Volcano's Rumblings Threaten The World's Third Largest Air Cargo Hub
By Douglas Fox
Published on: February 3, 2009

Mount Redoubt's volcano sits just 100 miles upwind of Anchorage International Airport—the third-largest air-cargo hub in the world. Redoubt's last eruption, in December 1989, led to a close call—what could have been one of the worst aviation disasters in history.

On Dec. 15, 1989, KLM flight 867 intercepted an ash cloud that Redoubt had exhaled just 90 minutes earlier. Within 60 seconds, a maelstrom of microscopic volcanic glass shards shut down all four of the 747's engines. With 245 passengers on board, the plane plummeted 13,000 ft before the pilots managed to restart engines and steer the crippled craft to an emergency landing in Anchorage.

"This is not a hypothetical hazard, this is a real hazard," says Marianne Guffanti, head of the Volcano Hazards Program at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va. "There have been over 100 encounters of aircraft with ash clouds since the early 1970s, and the majority of these have involved some kind of [aircraft] damage. [Full Article]

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