VIEWPOINTS

EYJAFJALLAJÖKUL – A Personal View

By Dr David Hillson
The Risk Doctor

Why has everyone started talking about volcanoes and trying to pronounce the name Eyjafjallajökul? I’ve just returned to England from a business trip to the USA which was eight days longer than planned, because the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name erupted on 14 April, sending tons of volcanic ash into the sky. As a result the aviation authorities across much of northern Europe grounded all commercial planes, stranding about five million passengers across the globe who wanted to fly into or out of affected airports. Chaos followed, with European airspace being closed for eight days. Towards the end of this period the authorities were widely criticised for having over-reacted, prohibiting flights unnecessarily.

There had been a few previous occasions when planes had been badly affected by volcanic ash, including a British Airways flight from London to Auckland in 1982, which lost all four engines after flying through the ash cloud from Mount Galunggung, a small volcano which had erupted on the island of Java. Fortunately the crew were able to restart the engines and land safely at Jakarta. But was the decision this time to close European airspace justified?

In fact the Eyjafjallajökul volcano had erupted 26 days earlier on 20 March, which was the first activity since the eruptions of 1821-23. There were also fears this time that Eyjafjallajökul could trigger a similar eruption in the nearby Mount Katla which is much larger…

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About the Author Dr. David Hillson Author Dr David Hillson, PMP FRSA HonFAPM FIRM FCMI, is internationally recognized as a leading thinker and practitioner in risk management. He is Director of Risk Doctor & Partners (www.risk-doctor.com), and has worked in over 40 countries. He is a popular conference speaker and award-winning author on risk, with six books on the topic. David has made several innovative contributions to improving risk management, and is well known for promoting the inclusion of proactive opportunity management within the risk process, and for his ground-breaking work in risk psychology. David is an Honorary Fellow of the UK Association for Project Management (APM) and past chairman of its Risk Management Specific Interest Group. He is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), and the UK Chartered Management Institute (CMI). David is also an active member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and was a founder member of its Risk Management Specific Interest Group. He received the PMI Distinguished Contribution Award for his work in developing risk management over many years. Since 1998 he has been a core author for the risk chapter of the PMBOK Guide®, and is a core author for the PMI Practice Standard for Project Risk Management. David can be contacted at david@risk-doctor.com. To see his latest book, Managing Risks in Projects, published in July 2009 by Gower, visit http://www.gowerpublishing.com/isbn/9780566088674.