Darwin International Airport has been forced to cancel all incoming and outbound flights due to a volcanic eruption on Sumawa, an Indonesian island located 1373 km northwest of Darwin.
Closure of the air space follows the issuing of an aviation Colour code Red advisory by the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre.
While the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has said most of the Territory is covered by an ash cloud, they believe the ash cloud is not projected to reach Australia's east coast.
The ash plume from the volcano is being emitted from its 1949 meter summit and according to pilot reports and data from the MTSAT-2, a Japanese Meteorological satellite located 35800 kilometres above the equator, is continuing to erupt.
The Darwin Centre is one of nine volcanic ash advisory centers around the world which advises the aviation industry on the location and movement of ash clouds. Volcanic ash is potentially deadly to aircraft because particles can clog engines, fuel, and vital calling systems.
The danger of the phenomena was highlighted in June of 1982 when a British Airways lost power in all four engines after inadvertently flying through an ash cloud over Indonesia. Fortunately, tragedy was averted when the crew managed to restart the engines and made an emergency landing in Jakarta.
More recently, in 2010, air travel throughout Europe was disrupted for more than a week due to ash from the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. IATA estimates that the airline industry worldwide lost US$200 million a day during the disruption, which forced the cancellation of over 95,000 flights.
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