As we shelter now in the face of a worldwide pandemic that has largely shut down air traffic, we're at the 10-year anniversary mark of another event that, at least for Europe and the North Atlantic, shut down almost all flying, although only for days: the great Icelandic Ash Cloud of 2010.
The cloud, from an eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano starting March 20th, intensified in mid-April, and for nearly a week stopped most aviation. The shutdown was ordered partly because of lost visibility and mainly out of concern for ash being sucked into jet engines, causing sudden power loss.
Affected areas ranged from North America in the west and to central Asia and Russia in the east, with Europe suffering the most effect. More than 100,000 flights were canceled, with 19,000 on the peak day, stranding over ten million travelers, including many who were trying to return home.
Almost the only area that benefited from the cloud, ironically, was another volcanic area, Portugal's Azores Islands, far enough south of the cloud to become, for a brief while, a center for diverted flights.
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