STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- All flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City Airport canceled from 11.30 a.m. BST
- Flights in Norway disrupted, all flights from Oslo canceled from 10 a.m. local time
- Ash emanating from volcanic eruption beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier
- Officials: Lava is not a big concern, but flooding is; hundreds of people evacuated
(CNN) -- Many airports were shut and flights grounded across Northern Europe Thursday because of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland, airport authorities said.
A huge plume of ash was moving east across the Atlantic after the eruption of a volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier early Wednesday.
All flights from London's Heathrow and Stansted airport north of the city would be suspended from 11.30 a.m. (6.30 a.m. EST), according to the British Airport Authority (BAA). Passengers were advised not to travel to the airport.
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow airports in Scotland were closed, BAA said. So was Newcastle airport in northern England, according to an airport spokesman.
A spokeswoman at London's Gatwick airport said they were experiencing "severe disruptions and cancellations" but planned to remain open.
Live images of the Icelandic volcano
Manchester airport said it expected flights to be disrupted until 1 p.m. (8 a.m. ET).
A spokeswoman for Dublin airport said several flights had been canceled because of the volcano ash. The airport mainly serves Britain and the rest of Europe.
Norway's aviation authority AVINOR closed roughly the northern half of the country's airspace on Wednesday evening, from Trondheim to the north.
"There have been some volcanic eruptions in Iceland before and we have some smaller parts of these type of clouds earlier. But not like this, not of this magnitude," AVINOR spokesman Ove Narvesen told CNN.
Flights to and from Oslo Airport were cancelled from 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. EST, according to Oslo Airport authorities. Passengers were advised to check with their airline for further information.
Flights elsewhere in Europe were not as badly affected -- yet. In Denmark's Copenhagen airport, the cloud was having a minor impact on arrivals and departures, but more widespread disruption is expected in the afternoon, according to spokesman Bente Kornbo. A spokeswoman at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris said the airport remained open.
Volcanic ash started spewing into the atmosphere after the volcano's eruption early Wednesday, the latest in a series which began on March 20.
It blew a hole in the Eyjafjallajokull glacier prompting officials to evacuate hundreds of people due to the risk of flooding.
"The volcano is under the glacier, and it's melting parts of the glacier," said Rognvaldur Olafsson, chief inspector at Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management. "The rivers will rise and potentially make some damage."
iReporter captures footage of eruption
The glacier is the sixth-biggest in Iceland and is just to the west of the bigger glacier, Myrdalsjokull. It is about 100 miles (160 km) east of the capital, Reykjavik.
The ash also caused delays in some flights leaving the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
"There are some ground holds in place for flights that would be going through Icelandic air space due to volcanic ash," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Wednesday night.
Manchester Airport spokesman Russell Craig said the ash poses a threat to aircraft, even if it isn't visible in the air.
"If you think about the way an aircraft engine works, it sucks in air, it compresses it, forces it out on the other side. That creates thrust," Craig told CNN. "If that air were mixed with ash, it can cause engine failure and electrical difficulties with an aircraft. It's happened before, and the aircraft didn't come out the other end in one piece."
Passengers in Manchester have been "incredibly patient" about the cancellations, Craig said.
Ash air emergencies
- April 1982 -- British Airways flight 009 en route to Auckland from London flew into a cloud of ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, Indonesia, causing engines to fail. Crew were eventually able to restart three engines and land safely in Jakarta after gliding through the cloud.
- December 1989 -- KLM flight 867 en route to Anchorage in Alaska from Amsterdam flew into a volcanic ash cloud caused by eruption of Mount Redoubt in Alaska, resulting in failure of its engines as it tried to climb out of the cloud. Pilots were able to restart engines, two at a time, before landing the badly damaged airliner.
The Met Office ash cloud forecast for 7pm BST on Thursday 15 April, issued at 6.35am. The area inside the red line is affected by volcanic ash. (Telegraph.co.uk)
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