Flights were suspended to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport Sunday night as a volcanic eruption south of the city sent an ash plume up to nine miles (14kms) into the air.

Airlines canceled hundreds of international and domestic flights Monday as a result of the eruption at Mt Taal but tweets by Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific suggested authorities were looking at a resumption of service during the day.

Cebu said it was conducting safety checks of its aircraft before resuming operations from 11 am local time.

READ: Angry Iranians protest missile attack on Ukrainian jet.

PAL also suggested the suspension could be lifted but said it was working in close coordination with airport and aviation authorities monitoring the ash cloud situation in case there was a need to extend the closure.

“Should the closure be extended, we may have to cancel or delay additional flights to or from Manila,’’ it added.

Flightradar24 tweeted early afternoon Philippines time that flights were operating as the cloud moved away from the airport.

However, it said there was still “a high level of flight disruption and a reduced operating schedule with nearly 400 flights canceled today”.

Taal Volcano, about 37 miles south of Manila on the island of Luzon, is one of the country’s most active and its eruption Sunday prompted the evacuation of three towns.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in an 8 am bulletin that the volcano had “entered a period of intense unrest”  beginning with steam-driven activity in several points inside the main crater on January 12.

It said a level 4 alert remained in effect for the volcano and a hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours to days.

The center recommended the evacuation of Taal Volcano Island “and areas at high risk to pyroclastic density currents and volcanic tsunami within a 14-kilometer radius from Taal’s main crater.

“ Areas in the general north of Taal Volcano are advised to guard against the effects of heavy and prolonged ashfall,’’ it said.

“Civil aviation authorities must advise aircraft to avoid the airspace around Taal Volcano as airborne ash and ballistic fragments from the eruption column pose hazards to aircraft. “

The families of victims of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crash have lost an appeal against a court ruling that lawsuits against the carrier, insurer Allianz and manufacturer Boeing do not belong in the US.

Lawyers for the families had appealed a 2018 ruling by a US District Court judge that 40 wrongful death and product liability lawsuits should be heard in Malaysia.

New Boeing CEO takes reins amid renewed public firestorm.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board and is believed to have crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Extensive searches failed to find the wreckage and a final report on the disappearance was unable to determine a cause for the crash, although a widely held belief is that it was a murder-suicide involving the plane’s captain.

A three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that a lower court did not abuse its discretion when it decided the case should be tried in Malaysia.

The ruling is a setback the families of more than 100 MH370 victims from countries such as Australia, China, India and Malaysia.

The district court found Malaysia’s public interest in hearing claims arising from the MH370 disappearance “far outweighed” that of the United States, even when it came to claims made against Boeing.

It also found that private interest factors tilted strongly in favor of trying the cases in Malaysia, given the overwhelming amount of evidence located in the South-East Asian nation and the “potentially insurmountable challenges” of making that evidence available in a US court.

Lawyers for the victims’ families had argued the court refused to afford any deference to the decision to sue in the US or to specify the precise degree of deference it had applied.

The Court of Appeals backed the lower court’s decision, describing it as a well-reasoned opinion and noting it had did not abuse its discretion that the balance of public and private interests weighed heavily in favor of trying the case in Malaysia.

It said the district court’s analysis reflected a careful consideration of the foreign families’ interests and a thoughtful balancing of the public and private interest factors” with respect to individuals.

The lower court also correctly recognized that Thomas Wood, a US citizen and resident suing on behalf of his dead brother, was entitled to the greatest degree of deference.

“We find no reversible error in the district court’s reasoning regarding the appropriate levels of deference afforded to appellants’ claims,’’ it said.

The issue was further complicated when Malaysia decided to renationalize the airline in late 2014 and restructure it by creating a new, separate entity, Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB).

The assets of Malaysia Airlines System were transferred to MAB and the original company was placed under administration. MAB did not assume the liabilities related to MH370.

Lawyers for the families were critical of the district court’s analysis of issues related to the MAS/MAB restructure and its immunity claims.

The panel found it was entirely proper for the district court to recognize that serious jurisdictional questions existed and weigh that as a factor in favor of dismissal.

Iranians took the streets over the weekend to protest their government’s handling of a missile strike that brought down a Ukrainian Boeing 737 near Tehran last week.

The protestors demanded the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, step down in the wake of the admission by the Iranian military that it was responsible for a ground to air missile that caused the passenger jet to crash and explode with 176 on board.

The military made the admission it had downed the Ukraine International Airlines jet “unintentionally, due to human error” after denying for several days that the accident was due to a missile strike.

READ: Iran admits to shooting down Ukrainian 737.

It claimed that the Ukraine International Airlines jet moved too close to a sensitive military base at a time tensions were high because of the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani.

The altitude and direction of the flight presented like a hostile aircraft, it said.

However, an analysis by AirlineRatings editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas indicated the plane was following a similar flight path to other jets that had taken off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport that day.

Many of the passengers on the plane were Iranians and crowds in Tehran expressed anger at the way Iran’s leaders had handled the crisis.

The commander of the Aerospace Force of the Revolutionary Guard, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said in a televised statement that the missile strike was the result of a rash decision by a junior officer.

“When I became sure that the news was true,” The Wall Street Journal quoted Hajizadeh as saying. “I wished for death.

“All other organizations including the airport and civil aviation did their job correctly. All the blame is on us.”

Canada had 57 citizens on the plane – a number reduced by Canadian officials from an earlier estimate of 63 -and has sent a crash team to take part in the investigation alongside counterparts from Ukraine and Iran.

The US National Transportation Safety Board has also designated a representative to the probe.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a press conference on Saturday that Canada expected a full and complete investigation into the tragedy.

“We expect the full cooperation of the Iranians,’’ he said.

Trudeau said the Iranian admission was an important first step towards providing answers but noted that many questions remained to be answered.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was seeking justice and expected a full and open investigation.

This included bringing those responsible to justice, the return of victims’ bodies and compensation, he said.

Some airlines have suspended operations to Tehran and the US Federal Aviation Administration has banned flights by US carriers over Iraq, Iran and Gulf waters.

If  2019 was an “annus horribilis” for US aerospace giant Boeing, the start to 2020 hasn’t been much better in the run-up to new chief executive David Calhoun officially taking the reins on January 13.

Calhoun, 62, will have his work cut out to earn the $US28 million CBS News estimates he can potentially take home in 2020 as he moves to repair relationships with regulators and customers and focus on getting the 737 MAX back in the air.

In the last week alone, news emerged that the US Federal Aviation Authority has proposed fining Boeing $5.4 million over potentially defective wing parts on its 737 MAX aircraft, its outgoing CE0 made global headlines thanks to a massive payout of at least $US62 million and series of stunning internal messages left its credibility seriously tarnished.

One of its planes was shot down by the Iranian military, a major supplier announced massive layoffs due to the MAX crisis and the company is still grappling with the European Commission review of its deal to take a major stake in Embraer.

READ: Iran admits to shooting down Ukrainian 737.

Boeing is no longer in the spotlight for the downing last week of the Ukrainian 737 after the Iranian admission its Revolutionary Guard shot down the jet in what it says was a mistake.

A European Commission review that delayed the Embraer deal is also underway again after a two-month hiatus with a new decision deadline of April 30.

But that’s about as good as the recent news has been for the embattled plane-maker.

The $US5.4 million fine for issues involving slat tracks on the leading edge of a wing is on top of a $US3.9 million fine the US regulator proposed last month for similar problems on older 737NG jets.

The manufacturing problem hasn’t caused an issue with aircraft but the FAA says Boeing failed to adequately oversee its suppliers to ensure they complied with its safety assurance system and then knowingly submitted aircraft for FAA approval when it knew they had failed strength tests.

The company said it would ensure that all inspections and necessary part replacements were performed on the MAX aircraft before return service.

The eyebrow-raising payout to ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg does not include any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus. He also forfeited stock worth $US14.6 million.

However, the value of stock and pension entitlements to which he is contractually entitled totals $62.2 million at a time major supplier Spirit AeroSystems announced it was laying off 2,800 employees because of ongoing uncertainty about when the MAX will resume service.

Boeing has said it does not at this stage expect to furlough staff but it is this month suspending production of the 737 MAX and there is still no publicly available date for the grounded fleet to resume service.

The aircraft has been grounded since March 2019 after new flight control software was linked to fatal crashes at Indonesia’s Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. The two crashes killed a combined 346 people.

Getting the MAX back in the skies will be Calhoun’s top priority but the job of convincing the public everything is safe and above board has not been made easier by pages of damaging internal messages released last week.

The messages, seen by AirlineRatings, have stunned the industry with their cavalier attitude to safety and the regulatory process as well as their disdain for airlines.

The messages go back as far as 2013 but may relate to the development of 737 MAX flight simulators.

They reveal a campaign by some elements in the company to prevent regulators and airlines introducing simulator training for MAX pilots.

This included dissuading what appears to be an unnamed Jakarta-based airline that its pilots needed additional training.

The emails ridiculed regulators as well as fellow Boeing employees with one email noting that the MAX was “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys”.

There is talk of “Jedi mind tricking” various parties.

The chief technical pilot for the MAX talks about being under pressure to prevent regulators from requiring simulator training.

“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to MAX,’’ he says. “Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

Boeing recently surprised many by dropping its opposition to simulator training for the MAX ahead of the return to service.

There are also further suggestions that employees may have concealed problems with the MAX  Flight simulators during FAA certification and in one exchange an employee says he would not put his family on a “MAX simulator trained aircraft”.

“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,’’ another message says.

In releasing the messages, Boeing condemned the language used and said a review of MAX simulators concluded they were functioning correctly.

READ: Boeing confident on MAX simulators despite internal messages.

However, they have provided ammunition for US lawmakers investigating the MAX crashes and Boeing’s relationship with the FAA.

“They paint a deeply disturbing picture of the lengths Boeing was apparently willing to go to in order to evade scrutiny from regulators, flight crews, and the flying public, even as its own employees were sounding alarms internally,’’  said House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure chair Peter DeFazio.

The FAA said in a statement its experts have determined that nothing in the documents pointed to any safety risks that had not identified as part of the MAX review process but described the tone and content of some messages as “disappointing”.

“The FAA maintains a rigorous process for qualifying flight simulators,’’ it said.

“Upon reviewing the records for the specific simulator mentioned in the documents, the agency determined that piece of equipment has been evaluated and qualified three times in the last six months. Any potential safety deficiencies identified in the documents have been addressed.”