In the 80s one of the other volcanoes blew and a KLM flight ran into the stuff at about 30K ft and flamed out all 4 engines. They coasted for 12 min before they got one engine started and then another and was able to make a safe landing at international.
Seems that the "Glass" stuff melted in the engines, coated some of the sensors and made it think the engines were over heating and shut them down. Most airlines just cancel their flights if a mountain is belching stuff over 10,000 ft anymore. Took $25 Mil to get that plane to fly again.
We had some visitors after the 1986 St. Augustine blow, and they were "Volcano Chasers". They bought gas for me to fly to St. Augustine. I was a little afraid of it, so I traveled at 10,000 ft so I could see it from a long way off. It is 180 miles from Anchorage, so it is a 3 hour round trip in my airplane.
The couple kept trying to see the mountain, and I kept trying to point it out to them. What I discovered was they were looking for the mountain to be at our level. Finally, when I told them to look down they saw it. It is only about 4500 ft, and it has made it's own island about 5 miles off shore. It is a classic cone with it's own island. Anyway, they were disappointed that it was so small.
I circled over it at 10,000 ft, and it looked pretty calm - just a few puffs of steam about every 3 or 4 min - so I decended until I flew around the top. We could even smell the sulfer at that level.
Bonus was we saw several bears on the shore just west of the mountain.
That is my "Visit the Volcano" story.
Jim
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