This image, captured on Thursday, April 15, 2010 by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), shows the vast cloud of volcanic ash sweeping across Scotland from the eruption in Iceland, more than 1,000 km away. The ash, which can be seen as the large grey streak in the image, is drifting from west to east at a height of about 11 km above the surface of the Earth.

Iceland makes waves again, two years after its banking crash. This time, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has erupted for the first time since 1821, sending a plume of ash up to 11 kilometres into the atmosphere and turning Northern Europe into a no-fly zone.

The volcano has erupted four times in the past 1,100 years and Wednesday's surge through the ice cap in a remote region, came two days after a parliamentary report on the banking crash which said the private banks failed, the supervisory system failed, the politics failed, the administration failed, the media failed, and the ideology of an unregulated free market utterly failed - - it could be describing Ireland. Loans from foreign banks, including Deutsche Bank and Citigroup, to wealthy Icelandic business individuals, helped fuel the crisis, according to the report.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano may continue to erupt on and off for several months, and it could also trigger a bigger eruption of a larger adjacent volcano. Europe's main air routes are down wind and the ash comprising glass type particles is a serious threat to aircraft engines.

In 1982, two Boeing 747-200 passenger aircraft encountered ash at night from the Mount Galunggung volcanic eruption in Java, Indonesia. A British Airways jet carrying 240 passengers, entered the ash cloud during night time in June 1982 150 km downwind of the volcano. All four engines failed and the aircraft descended for 16 minutes, losing 7500 metres of its 11500 metre altitude, until the crew managed to restart the engines. A month later, a Singapore Airlines flight with 230 passengers flew through an ash cloud in the same area and  three of the four engines were restarted after a descent of 2,400 metres.

Eurocontrol said on Thursday afternoon that most air traffic in the north of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden was suspended. It said these restrictions will be extended to cover the southern United Kingdom area. The main north Atlantic east bound flow arrived at European airports with little disruption. Routes to handle the afternoon westbound flow had been moved  to the south to avoid the volcanic ash zone. However, Eurocontrol said it is expected that this flow of traffic will be disrupted. SEE: Eurocontrol Network Operations Portal.

Last night, the Irish Aviation Authority announced that it was lifting restrictions, with immediate effect, on flights to and from the State airports at Cork and Shannon and some of the regional airports.

It said however, as the latest reports from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London indicated that the ash cloud was still over the east coast, the restrictions would remain in force at Dublin airport until, at least, 11 am on Friday, 16^th April. Restrictions also remain in force in large parts of the UK and Northern Europe.

This decision is based on the predicted path of the ash plume which shows a move to the east and south of Ireland. This will allow transatlantic flights and internal flights to take off and land at Shannon.

Donie Mooney, Director of Operations at the Irish Aviation Authority said that the Authority is satisfied that it is safe to fly to and from the State airports/regional airports on the western coast.

"We will continue to closely monitor the weather and once it is safe to fly into the east coast we will lift the restrictions at Dublin Airport when it is deemed safe to do so. We advise anybody booked on flights tomorrow to check with their airlines on a regular basis.

"Our priority is the safety of the pilots, crews and passengers on all flights. So we will not lift restrictions until we are satisfied that it is 100% safe to fly," he said.