Flight chaos in Australia as ash cloud returns

Hundreds of flights were grounded Tuesday in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra as the Chilean ash cloud returned to Australia with a vengeance, with the chaos due to worsen over coming days.

The cloud, created by the eruption of the Puyehue volcano high in the Andes more than two weeks ago, has looped the globe and made its way back Down Under to wreak fresh havoc.

State broadcaster ABC said the travel plans of more than 120,000 people had been thrown into disarray -- with an industry group saying it was Australia's worst air travel disruption for more than 20 years.

"The ash cloud is denser and larger than that which caused widespread disruption to flights last week," said Airservices Australia, adding that the plume was hovering between 20,000 and 40,000 feet (6-13 kilometres).

"It is also predicted to linger longer over southeast Australia. It is spread in a large band below the Australian continent and is predicted to continue to move to the northeast and east in coming days."

National flag carrier Qantas suspended services to and from the South Australian capital Adelaide as well as Canberra and Sydney -- Australia's busiest airport.

Qantas later announced that all flights into and out of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra would also be grounded on Wednesday, including international routes.

Virgin soon followed suit, although its Melbourne services will be reviewed at 1.00pm (0200 GMT) and flights into and out of Sydney and Canberra at 4.00pm (0500 GMT).

"We estimate that we will be cancelling in excess of 200 flights on Wednesday," Qantas spokeswoman Olivia Wirth told reporters, adding that international arrivals and departures would be delayed until Thursday.

"The experts say we simply won't be able to operate in this situation. This has had a significant impact in the Qantas Group, but we will always put safety before schedule."

Qantas' discount airline Jetstar also called off Adelaide and Sydney flights Tuesday while Tiger Airways grounded its entire fleet, with no services anywhere.

Virgin suspended flights to Adelaide, Canberra and major hubs Sydney and Melbourne, as well as Tasmania.

Ash poses a significant threat to aircraft because once sucked into engines it can be transformed into molten glass by the high temperatures and potentially cause an engine to fail.

John Lee, chief executive of Tourism and Transport Forum, an industry body, said it was the largest disruption to Australia's aviation industry since a 1989 pilots' strike.

"We anticipate the total impact to the tourism industry will be something over Aus$10 million. It could be as high as Aus$13 or Aus$14 million but it's probably around Aus$11.5 million per day," Lee told AFP.

"It is a very substantial business disruption."

Meteorologists said that while the ash had thinned during its travels around the world it was still clearly visible on satellite images and was moving at an altitude where aircraft generally cruise.

"It is the same cloud that has gone right around the world. It is still dense and it is still hazardous to aviation," said a spokesman at the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre.

The cloud first entered Australian and New Zealand airspace just over a week ago, causing some airlines to ground all flights to affected areas while others chose to divert their planes under and around the plume.

Flights were also affected across Argentina and Uruguay.

The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre's director Andrew Tupper said the plume was a rare occurrence and a third loop back to Australia was not likely.

"A third time round would be unprecedented," he said, adding that it was a testing time for airlines.

"It is a very complex problem for the airlines to manage. Obviously they have to take a conservative approach."

Russian plane crash raises fresh concerns about ageing fleet

The deadly plane crash in northern Russia on Monday night that left forty four people dead and eight in a critical condition has raised fresh concerns about the airworthiness of Russia’s ageing civil aircraft fleet.

Although investigators have warned it is too early to say precisely what caused the disaster, they said mechanical failure (along with human error and bad weather) was one of the lead theories.


State media told viewers that the plane involved in the crash, a Tupolev-134 passenger jet, was generally reliable, but conceded it was in the process of being phased out due to its old age.


Although Russian airlines flying international routes typically use more modern Boeings and Airbus planes, many domestic carriers continue to use ageing Soviet-era aircraft that are on their last legs.


The Soviet-era jet involved in the crash was thirty one years old, and Russia’s transport minister Igor Levitin warned in 2007 that such planes were getting too old for commercial use and should be withdrawn from service within five years.


Around 150 such planes are estimated to remain in service inside Russia however, along with a similar number of ageing Tupolev-154 passenger liners which are also reaching the end of their service life.

44 dead in Russian plane crash

A plane carrying 52 people in northern Russia crashed late on Monday night, with many of the passengers feared dead.

The Tupolev-134 was travelling from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Petrozavodsk when it crashed just before midnight. It was carrying 43 passengers and nine crew.

Eyewitnesses said that the plane broke up and caught fire on landing.

"Preliminary information is that about 40 are dead. The other eight are in hospital," said a spokesman for the Russian Emergency Ministry. Later the death toll was revised up to 44.

Local news agencies reported that a Swedish national and Russian Premier League soccer referee Vladimir Pettay were among the dead.

Officials said the plane crash landed in a field, nine miles away from the airport. As it came down it narrowly missed houses built close to a motorway. Photographs from the scene showed firemen battling with fires among the wreckage of the plane.

The Tu-134 plane, belonging to the RusAir airline, was en route from Moscow to the city of Petrozavodsk, Emergencies Ministry spokesman Olga Semyonova said.

Her ministry said in a website statement that 44 people were killed. Eight survivors, including a 10-year-old boy, were hospitalised in critical condition in Petrozavodsk.

Ms Semyonova said the plane went down on its final approach to the airport in Petrozavodsk, making a crash landing one to one mile short of the runway. It was unclear if the plane had attempted to land on the road, or just happened to fall there, she said. Petrozavodsk is in Karelia province, near the Finnish border, about 400 miles northwest of Moscow.

Authorities had no immediate explanation for the accident, but the Interfax news agency quoted the airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were "unfavorable weather conditions."

Chimp attack woman Charla Nash has full face transplant

Doctors who operated on Charla Nash said she was "a courageous, strong person"

A US woman whose face was torn off by a chimpanzee in 2009 has received a full face transplant.

Charla Nash lost her nose, lips, an eyelid and her hands when the animal, which was kept by a friend as a pet, attacked her. She was also left blind.

Doctors said there had been numerous complications during the 20-hour operation in Boston last month and that Ms Nash had only recently woken up.

She was also given two new hands but they later had to be removed.

The operation, involving a team of 30 medics, was the third full face transplant to be carried out at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Hands turned septic

Ms Nash, who did not appear at the hospital news conference, was given a new nose and lips as well as facial skin, nerves, muscles and teeth. She remains blind.

She will eventually be able to eat a hamburger, something very important her, having only had pureed food since her injury” Dr Bohdan Pomahac Lead surgeon

Lead surgeon Dr Bohdan Pomahac described her as a "courageous, strong person" who had inspired the team to "do everything possible using our collective expertise to restore her quality of life".

He said he was confident she would regain muscle control of her face in the coming months and that she should be able to smell and to eat normally.

"She will eventually be able to eat a hamburger, something she said was very important her, having only had pureed food since her injury, and I think we can all relate to that."

But he said the double hand transplant had proved to be "very challenging" and ultimately unsuccessful, after Ms Nash developed pneumonia and the hands became septic.

"After several days of doing everything possible to maintain the hands it was clear they were not thriving, so we removed the hands," he said.

'Still groggy'

John Orr, a spokesman for Ms Nash's family, said Ms Nash had been unconscious since the operation and was only just starting to wake up.

Charla Nash, pictured before the attack

"She's still groggy. She's acknowledging with a nod that someone is there, but she still has pneumonia issues," he said.

Ms Nash's brother, Steve Nash, said the operation was "miraculous".

"We are confident Charla will gain her goal to regain her health and independence in the future," he said.

Ms Nash was attacked by a 200lb (95kg) pet chimpanzee, known as Travis, for 12 minutes in 2009.

The chimp's owner, Sandra Herold, died last year but the Nash family is suing her estate for $50m (£31m) for negligence and recklessness. They also hope to sue the state for $150m, saying the authorities failed to prevent the attack.

About a dozen face transplants have been carried out since the first in France in 2005 and the first full face operation was completed in Spain in 2010.

In March, 26-year-old Dallas Wiens became the recipient of the first US full face transplant in an operation at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Two months later, Mr Wiens, who lost his face in an electrical accident in 2008, said the face felt like his own and he had already regained his sense of smell.