20/05/2020
PAPER ON BLUE ICE
During the past many years, several reports of some bizarre incidents of fall of a huge block of Ice (Blue Ice) the from the sky are appearing even in dry weather through the newspapers / TV and in other media. Such incidents create all around the world a lot of commotion and panic in the surroundings due to the sudden appearance of the ice block from nowhere, their unusual size and other features.
Initially, people try to relate the mysterious object to a particular type of ‘Hail Stone’ or a meteorite, many other call it as a megacryometeor, some compare it as an accidental fall of a box of ice from the aircraft, and various other similar theories start appearing. Many people try to touch it, carry it home for storage in the fridge and some even dare to taste it thinking that it was some of the kind of heavenly or supernatural ice.
The occurrences of fall of ice from the aircraft (Also known as Blue ice) were so far considered to be extremely rare and were taken as once in blue moon only. However, if the things are viewed & analyzed in a deeper perspective, it can be realized that the phenomenon is not so uncommon, as it is believed to be.
It is a bit strange to believe that the origin of Ice falling from the sky is not at all related to the weather, but to an odd object; a commercial airliner, that too from the most unexpected place, from one of its toilets. In fact, it is a mixture of human bio-waste and liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude and is also known as “Blue ice” or “Aircraft Ice”.
Of late another term “Megacryometeor” is being used in various article, Newspapers, Media sources, and in Technical publications and sometimes even in Research papers for all kinds of incidents of fall of large-sized ice blocks from the sky. In fact, a Megacryometeor is a weather-related meteorological event (Of course, unusual weather) that has got nothing to do with the aircraft ice. Thus, the term Megacryometeor should be used only when the incident is confirmed to be related to the phenomenon of fall of abnormally large chunks of ice from a clear sky under the unusual weather circumstances.
There are many myths associated with the blocks of ice fallen from the sky. The very first myth is that if the ice has fallen from the aircraft toilets, it must invariably be Blue or Green, which unfortunately is not true. It could be of any other colour, blue, green, yellowish, rusty, muddy, ash or white or even colourless. Another myth prevalent is that as no aircraft were seen in the sky after the icefall, which shows the ice was not from an aircraft. This reason is not valid, since, by the time the eyewitness looks at the sky, aircraft may fly to as much as 3 to 5 Kilometers away.
The author has collected a list of more than 500 cases of ice fall from the sky which were reported all over the World, (and more than 75 cases from India). This, however, represents only a fraction of the actual cases of ice fall, which by and large go unreported and unnoticed.
For the collection of data of ice fall I have tried to create a broad network of cases of ice fall, covering all corners of the World. For this purpose, I made references to various media sources such as Newspapers, TV News, Books, Wikipedia, YouTube and even personal blogs (If considered authentic) to procure as many as the number of cases as possible. Other than English and Hindi media I have also made attempts to extract the information from the media sources of other languages including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Thai, Malay, Indonesian and many more. The idea was to cover all each and every corner of the world so as to find out a solution to the problem which is universally applicable to all.
While referring and analysing the list of local Indian cases (Where maximum details could be collected), the author has made attempts to relate the event with respect to various aeronautical facts & figures such as proximity to an airport, possible phases of flight, en route/neighbouring airports, Air Routes (ATS Routes), ATS Reporting Points their distances, bearings and their possible link (If any) with the incident.
It is however certain that cases of ice fall are potential hazards and are likely to endanger the lives and properties on the ground. God forbid, someday or another such incident may create havoc including tremendous loss of life & property or sometime may even lead to a catastrophe. Thus, there is a definite need for a possible solution so as to avoid or at least minimize such undesirable occurrence. Accordingly, certain safety precautions in the direction of preventing these incidents would be a great help.
Now coming to the need for a solution to the problem, such cases can be categorized into two broad classifications: weather-related, or meteorological events and non-weather-related or Non-meteorological. While one cannot have any manual control over the weather-related cases, however, there is always a possibility of prevention of non-weather-related cases to some extent. The author is of the firm belief that out of all the cases of fall of ice from the sky, a majority of cases are aviation-related, and the rest may be weather-related or due to other reasons.
In this context my technical paper on the topic "COMMON MYTHS REGARDING THE FALL OF ICE FROM THE SKY" has been published in the "International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) Volume: 07 Issue: 05 | May 2020 www.irjet.net. If anyone is interested in advance reading, the link for the same is given below.
https://irjet.net/archives/V7/i5/IRJET-V7I5430.pdf
IRJET- International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology is an peer reviewed open access,monthly journal published by Fast Track Publications...
