Portrait of the week | 24 April 2010

Some 150,000 British travellers were stranded when the National Air Traffic Services stopped all flights from 15 April because of a cloud of fine volcanic ash drifting from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.

Some 150,000 British travellers were stranded when the National Air Traffic Services stopped all flights from 15 April because of a cloud of fine volcanic ash drifting from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. It was feared that the glassy particles would melt in jet engines, causing them to fail. The name of the volcano was very seldom heard on British media because it was hard to pronounce. No aeroplanes flew over Europe from the Pyrenees to the Arctic. The quietness was widely noted. British Airways said the flight ban was costing it £15 million to £20 million a day. The airline sent up a test flight of a Boeing 747 and declared that ‘blanket restrictions on airspace are unnecessary’; but they continued. Suddenly, after six days, the ban was lifted after talks between the government and the Civil Aviation Authority. ‘Manufacturers have now agreed increased tolerance levels in low ash density areas,’ the CAA said. Mr Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, had sent HMS Albion to Santander in Spain to pick up 580 soldiers returning home from Afghanistan, and there was room only for another 250 ‘vulnerable’ civilians. HMS Ocean and HMS Ark Royal were sent towards the Channel ports, but were not used. ‘We’re putting on coaches from Madrid,’ Mr Brown had said on Monday. ‘There’s 100 already there in Madrid to do it.’ But they were not to be seen.

The general election campaign was transformed when Mr Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was judged to have won the first of three televised debates.