On November 23, 2025, the long-dormant Hayli Gubbi volcano in Ethiopia’s Afar region erupted, sending a plume of ash and sulfur dioxide up to approximately 14–15 km (45,000–50,000 feet) into the atmosphere. The plume subsequently drifted eastward toward the Middle East and South Asia, forcing airlines to cancel or reroute flights as authorities monitored the threat to aircraft.
Eyjafjallajokull volcano of Iceland in 2010
The eruption of Hayli Gubbi has forced aviation regulators to issue urgent advisories and airlines to enact precautionary measures, raising serious concerns about flight safety, engine integrity and disruption to passenger travel across a wide segment of international airspace.
Path of Hayli Gubbi’s Ash Cloud and Geographical Spread
Hayli Gubbi has disrupted flights in India, Pakistan (a nation that was grappling with Aircraft maintenance issues a few weeks ago) and the Gulf region. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), high-level winds carried the ash cloud from Ethiopia across the Red Sea, over Yemen and Oman, across the Arabian Sea, and then into western and northern India.
According to The Indian Express, forecast models show the ash plume influencing airspace over Gujarat, Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. Delhi, which has seen massive air pollution scare over the past few months, is expected to get more pollued as Hayli Gubbi’s ash hovers over its skies.
India Meteorological Department IMD expected the ash cloud to exit Indian airspace by Tuesday evening (around 19:30 IST) and drift further eastward toward China, a nation that India recently went past in the WDMMA rankings.
Therefore, flight corridors extending toward South East Asia and potentially China, depending on ash dispersion and wind trajectories.
Why Volcanic Ash Matters for Aviation Safety
The eruption of a volcano such as Hayli Gubbi often releases huge quantities of fragments of pulverized magmatic rock. When these reach great heights and can aggregate in clouds, which in turn drift with the wind. A related term is “ashfall”, which refers to the settling of these particles eventually in the ground. Gravity dictaes larger, heavier particles of such kind to settle near the eruption area while the lighter ones can drift across continents, as is the case with Hayli.
Volcanic ash is notoriously hazardous to aircraft, as microscopic abrasive particles can:
- damage engines
- erode critical surfaces
- degrade visibility
- Contaminate cabin air
- foul sensors
In Pakistan, for example, Hayli’s “ash cloud was seen 60 nautical miles (111km) south of the port city of Gwadar on Monday“, reported Al-Jazeera, while Air Arabia cancelled its operations from Sharjah, UAE. The director-general of meteorology at the IMD, Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, said that on Tuesday evening, the ash cloud associated with Hayli was travelling at a speed of 100-150 kmph over Eastern India.
How Volcanic Ash can lead to Aircraft Accidents
In 1982, a Boeing 747-200 operated by British Airways (Flight 009) flew into an ash cloud that had formed after an eruption in West Java. All four engines of the aircraft went down and the $83 million aircraft essentially transmuted into a glider weighing nearly 400,434 kg.
According to Stewart John, a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and former president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, volcanic ash can be fatal for an aircraft, and his words were quoted in the BBC:
“This dust really is nasty stuff…It’s extremely fine and if it gets into a jet engine, it blocks up all of the ventilation holes that bleed in cooling air. Jet engines operate at about 2,000C, and the metals can’t take that. The engine will just shut down.”
In the case of BA 009, the crew managed to blow the ash out of the engines by “turning the engines over and having a clean airflow going through“. John was of the opinion that the volcanic ash cloud was akin to a typhoon, as it would be too difficult or downright impossible to fly through it. There were also the added problems that no one could directly monitor it, and satellite images were the only guiding tool, besides erring “on the side of extreme caution.”
It is not only the engines that are affected when an aircraft walks into a volcanic ash. The following forward-facing surfaces of an airplane are also affected:
- landing-light covers
- forward cabin windows
- engine nose cowls
- thrust reversers
- pitot tubes
If volcanic ash penetrates electronics aboard the aircraft, the navigation and other onboard systems in the cockpit might also be affected, potentially leading to a lack of communication between the flight crew and passengers/ flight attendants. What’s more, electrical disturbances within the ash cloud might suppress the ability to transmit a distress call.
According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, volcanic ash can cause severe damage to aircraft engines when an aircraft flies through an ash cloud. The abrasive particles first pass through the engine fan and compressors, where they can erode compressor blades before reaching the combustor.
Inside the combustor, the extreme temperatures can melt the silica in the ash. The resulting molten material then travels into the turbine section, where it can harden and accumulate on critical engine components, including combustor surfaces and high-pressure turbine inlet airfoils. Even a partial buildup can restrict airflow enough to disrupt compressor operation and potentially trigger an engine flameout.
All in All
The eruption of Hayli Gubbi has exposed just how fragile global air connectivity can be in the face of natural hazards. What began as a geological occurrence in Ethiopia rapidly morphed into a multi-national aviation disruption — affecting flights across India, the Middle East and potentially into East Asia.
Given that China is expecting the ash cloud of the Hayli to be hovering over its skies, Chinese aviation might be affected even more.
