The volcanic ash cloud that never was..

The Mail on Sunday can today reveal the full extent of the shambles behind the great airspace shutdown that cost the airlines £1.3 billion and left 150,000 Britons stranded - all for a supposed volcanic ash cloud that for most of the five-day flights ban was so thin it was invisible.

As the satellite images of the so-called 'aerosol index' published for the first time, right, demonstrate, the sky above Britain was totally clear of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano.

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And Jim McKenna, the Civil Aviation Authority's head of Airworthiness, Strategy and Policy admitted last night: 'It's obvious that at the start of this crisis there was a lack of definitive data. It's also true that for some of the time, the density of ash above the UK was close to undetectable.' More...

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