1 INTRODUCTION

The Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Minister of Defence have decided to develop the following procedure concerning volcanic ash operations. This procedure, which was first issued in 2010, is based on EASA Safety Information Bulletin 2010-17R7 published and corrected on the 2nd of July 2015 and ICAO Volcanic Ash Contingency Plan EUR and NAT Regions (EUR Doc 019).

The purpose of this AIC is to provide operators and pilots with information and recommendations on operations when volcanic ash concentrations may be present in the Amsterdam FIR (i.e. all airspace from SFC to UNL, uncontrolled or controlled by LVNL, Ministry of Defence or Maastricht UAC).

It is emphasised that a volcanic ash encounter is potentially hazardous and areas of known contamination above a certain concentration (see paragraph 3 for details) must generally be avoided. Volcanic ash may extend for several hundreds of miles and the contaminated zone may not be visible. The decision to operate should be taken carefully.

Areas affected by volcanic ash above a certain concentration will be promulgated by SIGMET and associated information shall be published by NOTAM.

Attention:
This AIC-A must under no circumstances be considered as a permit to conduct normal flight operations in volcanic ash conditions.

2 BACKGROUND

During the 2010 Icelandic ash crisis, European airspace was badly affected. As a consequence, the European aviation regulatory community has continued to make great efforts to contribute to the improvement of international procedures should a further volcanic eruption of similar proportions take place. As a result of this process EASA issued a new Safety Information Bulletin which will be revised if needed.

On August 21 2014 Safety Information Bulletin 2010-17R6 was issued containing an update on the results from various rule making tasks and further clarification on the reporting of volcanic ash encounters.

On June 24 2015 Safety Information Bulletin 2010-17R7 was issued containing an update on the use and publication of volcanic ash safety risk assessment (VA SRA). This bulletin was corrected on the 2nd of July 2015.

EASA ED Decisions 2013/008/R and 2013/009/R (dated 16/04/2013), amending acceptable means of compliance and guidance material to EU Regulation No 965/2012, introduced GM3-ORA.GEN.200(a)(3) for approved training organisations and GM3-ORO.GEN.200(a)(3) for aircraft operators. This guidance material implements the VA SRA methodology in the requirements for safety management systems for operators of complex aircraft. It is a direct transposition of the methodology provided in ICAO Doc 9974 Flight Safety and Volcanic Ash: "Risk management of flight operations with known or forecast volcanic ash contamination".

3 AREAS OF CONTAMINATION

The following definitions and display methods of contamination, which correspond to those in the ICAO Volcanic Ash Contingency Plan EUR and NAT Regions (EUR Doc 019), are now valid.

3.3 Area of high contamination (to be displayed in red)

The area of high contamination is an airspace of defined dimensions where volcanic ash may be encountered at concentrations equal to or greater than 4 x 10-3 gram/M3, where no ash concentration guidance is available.

ash concentrations below the low contamination threshold (equal to or less than 0.2 x 10-3 gram/M3) are considered not relevant and will be displayed as an area without colour, whereas the maps will indicate "NZ" (normal zone).

Figure 1. Areas of contamination

4 OPERATING IN CONTAMINATED AREAS

It is recommended to avoid operation in visible volcanic ash or, where visibility of the ash is impaired (e.g. during IMC, night), avoid operation in discernible volcanic ash. Discernible means that the location of volcanic ash can be determined in some way.

5 AIR TRAFFIC FLOW CAPACITY MANAGEMENT (ATFCM)

ANSPs shall decide if and how to apply ATFCM measures in order to cope with expected deviations from the route structure or given clearance and possible requested assistance. The Network Manager will be informed if ATFCM measures apply.

These general remarks are applicable to all areas of contamination:

• ATFCM measures for the Amsterdam FIR are based on LVNL's and MUAC’s Area of Responsibility (AoR). Adjacent ATC centres (skeyes, DFS, NATS, and Naviair) may utilise ATFCM measures in their AoR;
• The Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management in conjunction with the Minister of Defence can impose restrictions on uncontrolled flights;
• The Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management in conjunction with the Minister of Defence can close areas of medium or high contamination.

6 AMSTERDAM FIR VOLCANIC ASH FORECAST CHART

Based on ATC operational sectors and TMA boundaries, the Amsterdam FIR has been divided into nine areas from SFC up to FL245 (see figure 2), including airspace without ATC control. On top of these nine areas Maastricht UAC has defined sub-sectors (see figure 3). These combined sectors are defined as the VAFC area.

Figure 2: ATC operational areas, SFC up to FL 245	Figure 3: MUAC sub-sectors, FL 245 up to FL 660

Once the relevant VAAC (London or Toulouse) with +6, +12, +18 HR forecast of contaminated areas has been issued and volcanic ash is expected to enter the Amsterdam FIR, the VAFC shall be issued and an initial NOTAM shall be promulgated. This NOTAM may look like the following example:

REF AIC-A 05/2021 VOLCANIC ASH OPS PROCEDURES IN EFFECT FOR EHAA FIR DUE TO ERUPTION OF [...]. ATFCM-MEASURES AND/OR AIRSPACE RESTRICTIONS MAY BE EXPECTED. CHECK RELEVANT SIGMETS FOR ACTUAL STATUS OF ASH CONCENTRATION ZONES.

In case these areas of high, medium or low contamination will affect the Amsterdam FIR, the meteorological office (KNMI) will issue a SIGMET for volcanic ash. This SIGMET will be the primary information for airspace users and contains the boundaries of the contaminated areas indicated by LAT LONG coordinates, and if known, the vertical extend of the contamination indicated by flight level.

The VAFC shows the actual and +6, +12, and +18 HR forecast of relevant ash contamination areas projected over the VAFC areas from SFC up to FL 550 (above FL 550, no contamination information is published). The VAFC will be produced and published at least every six hours as long VAAC charts are produced and volcanic ash is expected to reach the Amsterdam FIR

The cross-border nature of volcanic ash makes international consistent use of data important. Therefore the areas of high, medium and low contamination as published by the VAAC are leading for construction of the respective areas on the VAFC for the Amsterdam FIR. In addition, between subsequent (six hourly) VAAC publications, actual observational data on local volcanic ash contamination may become available. If this data (e.g. information gathered during surveillance flights, pilot reports, eyeball interpretation of satellite data, etc.) is not yet, or will not be processed by the VAAC, local fine tuning or amendment of the VAFC contamination charts may be necessary. If these modifications will lead to significant differences in contamination value and/or volcanic ash location between VAAC and VAFC charts, all VAFC users will be notified about the differences by email.

7 AIR REPORTS AND PILOT REPORTS (PIREP)

8 ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION

9 FURTHER INFORMATION

For questions and remarks please contact:

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EASA

10 DOCUMENT CONTROL

This AIC replaces AIC-A 06/2014 dated 30 OCT 2014.

ISSN: 1386-6605