What Twitter taught me today about volcanoes and planes…
The unprecedented closure of the UK’s airspace today due to an ash cloud drifting over the country from a volcanic eruption in Iceland brought out the best in social media as well as traditional media reporting.
Twitter was alive with links and explanations, from elearning companies providing free resources for educators (and others) to explain about volcanoes, to Flickr collecting brilliant pictures of this and the previous eruption (more dramatic with its lava flows, whereas the ash cloud doesn’t really make for good photography.). Following the links led me to this stunning photograph of the Northern Lights AND a live volcano, uploaded earlier this month – what a fabulous picture!
Explanations of why the UK’s airspace was closed came from all sides. Sky News interviewed former British Airways pilot Eric Moody who has first-hand experience of flying through an ash cloud as in June 1982 he was piloting a Jumbo 747 from Kuala Lumpur to Perth, Australia when he hit an ash cloud just off Java. All four engines failed but happily the ultimate disaster was averted, and the incident led directly to a series of Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres being established around the world.
A good explanation can be found on YouTube: “All four engines have failed” from a National Geographic Air Crash Investigation video excerpt
Techcrunch reports on Ashes no crashes – Watch live online as aircraft clear from the UK’s ash-filled skies but the linked-to http://www.flightradar24.com/ website was overloaded due to all the attention.
Meanwhile @benmarsh of #uksnow fame set up a #ukash hashtag with map (or #ashtag of course!) but as the ash is at 55,000 feet, there are unlikely to be many photos or reports. And the running joke was that it was Iceland’s revenge on the UK for demanding the Icelandic banks pay back the UK investors after the crash.
I love these great examples of citizen journalism and learning opportunities combined with the expert coverage.
Photo credit: A great tilt shift photo of Gatwick by {Away until inspiration comes}