Volcanoes & Travel: Alaska's Mount Redoubt Erupts, Airport Shut Down

Volcanoes & Travel: Alaska’s Mount Redoubt Erupts, Airport Shut Down

Volcano fire Volcano chasers beware: Better hold off on checking out Alaska’s Mount Redoubt because you might have difficulty getting into Anchorage airport.

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was closed Saturday after a series of eruptions from Mt. Redoubt sent ash shooting up to 65,000 feet into the sky.

Alaska Airlines was forced to cancel more than 185 flights as a result of the closure.

All day Sunday workers cleared a fine layer of ash and soot from runways, windows and terminal buildings. By Sunday evening one of the three runways was reopened, but the airport is not expected to be fully operational until Tuesday evening, assuming the volcano does not erupt again.

Though Mt. Redoubt is more than 100 miles away from the airport, authorities felt the closure was necessary because gritty ash can be very damaging to airplane engines.

The airline industry learned this lesson the hard way in 1989-1990, when a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines jet flew into a massive ash cloud produced by the very same volcano during its last active eruption period. Apparently the cloud did not appear on the plane’s radar.

Even though Redoubt was more than 150 miles away from where the plane was flying, the ash clogged up all four engines, causing them to lose power. The pilot was eventually able to restart them, but only after the plane plunged almost 12,000 feet, threatening the lives of the 231 people onboard.

Gov. Bobby Jindal Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana may want to take note of the weekend’s events in Anchorage, as well as the near-tragedy of 1989. Just one month ago Jindal mocked the proposal in President Obama’s recent economic stimulus bill to increase funds for volcano monitoring, calling it a wasteful extravagance.

The residents of Alaska–and pretty much anyone flying within a several-hundred mile radius of a volcano–might disagree. Jindal did backtrack on his statement, partly in light of the fact that his state was hard hit by another natural disaster just a few years ago: Hurricane Katrina.

Improperly monitored volcanoes can have other detrimental effects on commerce and safety. Think of the potential damage to the oil rigs and pipelines in Alaska if an unexpected eruption were to happen before this equipment could be shut down or protected.

A U.S. Geological Survey report showed that early warning systems saved at least 5,000 lives and $275 million worth of U.S. military equipment when Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 in the Philippines.

Magma/lava On the other hand, volcanoes can be a boon to the economy, as on the big island of Hawaii. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park draws an average of two million visitors every year and is the Big Island’s number one visitor attraction.

They mostly come to gawk at Kilauea, the world’s most active volcano, and Mauna Loa, which has been continuously erupting over the last 25 years. Visitors can literally stand at the edge of Kilauea’s lava flow and watch the spectacular orange glow at dusk.

Fortunately for air travelers, Kilauea is a shield (slowly burbling) volcano as opposed to a cataclysmic one like Redoubt, which means that it does not eject massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere.

However Kilauea does cause “vog,” (volcanic fog), which is a combination of sulfur dioxide gas, moisture, oxygen, and dust from the atmosphere. It can cause respiratory problems and acid rain in areas on the Big Island where it is prevalent, which changes depending on wind patterns.

If you want to watch the eruption of Mt. Redoubt from the safety of your home, click here to see a live Web cam view. To see Kilauea in action, click here.

By Karen Elowitt for PeterGreenberg.com.