That volcano & flight disruption

[Blue406]

I have the lungs of a 8 year old girl

Bluddy pervert... give them back to her! Some folks today..

This whole thing is the authorities being cautious. Ash can do nasty things to jet engines. It turns to magma with the heat of the engine, globs together and sticks to the turbine blades and fuel injector outlets and cools, accumulating as more and more passes through the engine.
It then effectively snuffs the engine out. Also, whilst making its way through the first stage of the engine, it acts as an abbrasive, wearing the blades down, thus making them less effective at drawing in air, stifling the flow further.
The result is a surging engine that flames out and is very difficult or impossible to restart. Cue emergency diversion and landing!

[swiss]

All I can hear right now is ancient tractors farting around.

That'll be my 1.9, sorry chap

When I studied gas turbines and turbochargers, we were always told you know when your turbine wheel is shot because pieces of it can be observed exiting the funnel at speed. I would imagine this includes filling one's jet intakes with pumice stone.

[highlander]

Happened twice before to 747s:

1) BA Flight 9 that was mentioned earlier, over Indonesia, all four engines flamed out at 37,000 feet, only restarted again once they got to 12,000 ft. All four engines were replaced once she landed, plus the cockpit glass, and a lot of the airframe had to be repainted as the paint had been stripped off.

2) KLM Flight 867, over Alaska in 1989, lost all four engines while descending into Anchorage airport. They descended more than 12,000 feet before the engines could be restarted. Again, once they landed, all four engines were replaced, and more than $80 million USD damage was inflicted upon the airframe...