London, April 15: As UK air space was closed completely at noon today because of drifting ash from a volcano in Iceland, Air India’s Flight 111 from Delhi to London was facing a typical problem: what to do if Heathrow was not open when the aircraft was due to land just before 8pm?

A source told The Telegraph that AI 111 was already airborne by the time the decision was taken to close UK air space.

Although the authorities in Britain have said that UK air space would not be open before 6pm, the indications were that the closure might last much longer and be entirely dependent on whether the skies were considered safe.


No passenger plane would be allowed to fly through volcanic ash which contains tiny fragments of glass with the potential to clog jet engines and bring down aircraft.

The source said: “If Heathrow is open by 6pm, the flight from Delhi would be given priority permission to land. If not, the flight will be diverted to either Paris or Frankfurt.”

Before Heathrow shut down at noon, AI 130 from London to Mumbai was able to take off at 9.45am though for a while “it was touch and go whether it would be able to leave”, the source revealed.

It is unlikely that Air India’s flight to Delhi and Amritsar this evening from Heathrow will be able to leave, he went on. The national carrier’s flight to Toronto from Heathrow, AI 187, which was due to depart at 2pm, had been cancelled.

A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Services announced: “From midday today until at least 6pm, there will be no flights permitted in UK controlled airspace other than emergency situations. This has been applied in accordance with international civil aviation policy. We continue to monitor the situation with the Met Office and work closely with airline customers and adjoining countries.”

He suggested that the restrictions were unlikely to be lifted after 6pm, because it was “very unlikely that the situation over England will improve in the foreseeable future”.

He explained: “The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has issued a forecast that the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland will track over Europe tonight. Nats is working with Eurocontrol and our colleagues in Europe’s other air navigation service providers to take the appropriate action to ensure safety in accordance with international aviation policy.”

An indication of the extent of the chaos that faces hundreds of thousands of passengers flying in and out of Europe comes from the action taken by British Airways, which announced there would be no flights until, at least, tomorrow.

“We have cancelled all our flights for the rest of the day,” a spokesman said.

Today’s entire shut down of UK air space is “unprecedented” and appears to have been even more draconian than the action taken after 9/11.

The source of the troubles lies in south-west Iceland where hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes after a volcanic eruption yesterday at Eyjafjalljokull, which is part of the Mount Katla range. The ash, reaching 55,000 ft into the sky, has been swept by winds towards the UK and parts of northern Europe.

Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are among European countries that have also been hit. Safety body Eurocontrol said up to 4,000 flights across northern Europe would be cancelled on Thursday.

Heathrow resembled a ghost town as silence descended on the busiest airport in the world. On an average day, it handles about 1,300 flights and 180,000.

Gatwick, with 679 flights and 80,000 passengers, was also shut down.

One of those held up is Mandira Bedi who was supposed to be back in London tomorrow to present coverage of IPL3 after a visit to India. “We are hoping she will be back on Saturday,” said an ITV4 spokeswoman.

The most popular budget airline, Ryanair, said that from 9am, no further flights were operating to or from the UK. Ryanair also cancelled all flights to and from Ireland from 10am and all flights to and from Norway, Sweden and Denmark from 11.30am.

Glasgow Airport, which handles 200 flights and 15,000 passengers a day, was closed from midnight, Manchester Airport suspended flight operations at 7am.

It is because of past experience that the UK authorities are adopting extreme measures.

“In 1982 British Airways and Singapore Airways jumbo jets lost all their engines when they flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, and a KLM flight had a similar experience in 1989 over Alaska,” recalled an air expert. “On each occasion, the plane fell to within a few thousand feet of the ground before it was possible to restart the engines."

The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull is the first in nearly 200 years and geophysicists fear it could trigger a much larger explosion of nearby Mount Katla, which is described as “enormously powerful”.

Speaking in Manchester, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was due to engage in a live debate with his Tory and Liberal Democrat counterparts this evening, said: “The safety of our population is of the highest importance. Safety is the first and predominant consideration, and if any travelling public are inconvenienced I apologise for that but it is important that everybody’s safety comes first.”

Tory leader David Cameron, on the election campaign trail in Halifax, agreed: “It is very worrying news. Our first thoughts must be with the emergency services who will have lot of work to do.”

As expected, Nats said later that UK air space would remain closed until at least 7am on Friday. This means AI 111 from Delhi would need to be diverted.