This conference was prompted by the occurrence of 5 encounters between passenger jetliners with drifting clouds of volcanic ash from the 1989-90 eruptions of Redoubt Volcano in Alaska. Examines 5 principal areas, including: how volcanoes produce ash clouds, the damage and impacts resulting from ash-cloud encounters, communications procedures for mitigating the risks from volcanic ash, the meteorology and modeling of ash-cloud movement, and methods for detection and tracking of ash clouds. 60 technical presentations are included.

The symposium's aims were to encourage improvements in the detection, tracking, and warning of volcanic ash hazard so that aircraft may avoid ash clouds, and to review the effects of volcanic ash on aircraft so that pilots who encounter ash can respond appropriately.

Explanation of eruptions, lava flows and glacier melting on Redoubt Volcano on the west shore of Cook Inlet, southern Alaska, near Anchorage in 1989 and 1990.