The Catalyst

By TJ Pollock, Reporter

A massive cloud of volcanic ash has caused more than 6,000 flights to be cancelled today throughout Europe. The volcano in Iceland that swept towards the mainland of Europe has forced major airports such as London’s Heathrow, Amsterdam, Netherlands’, Schiphol; and Paris, France's Charles de Gaulle.

The reason for the cancellation of all the flights is due to the fact that volcanic ash can shut down jet engines.

Officials are unsure of how long it will take for the air to clear and flights to resume flying status. There are a few things that need to happen for that to happen. According to Matthew Watson in an interview with CNN, "You really need two things to happen: You need the volcano to stop emplacing ash to the altitude that commercial aircraft fly at, 30,000 to 35,000 feet, and you then need the upper level winds to blow the ash and disperse it out of the air space. How long that will take depends very much on the volcano. If this is it and it's stopped right now and it doesn't do anything else ... I imagine you are looking at 24 to 48 hours to clear U.K. air space," he said.

All in all, 3,000 European flights are expected to be affected by the closures.