Just occasionally, I wonder if hacks actually engage brain before writing their headlines, and this afternoon a superb example of this ability to perform the on-line foot in mouth has come from the Maily Telegraph, reporting on the fall-out – literally – from the eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland.
The headline is unequivocal: “Ryanair flies plane through Icelandic volcano ash cloud” it tells. But Ryanair has done no such thing: the “verification” flight, from Prestwick, which overflew Inverness, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, flew through an area where the concentration of volcanic ash had been predicted to be high.![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-L1DvwL8M5vvgb54LgSPol_EzLqNOFV3C5k1mLKXR0Z5dAwOvNR6fBtYWLLDvUH71c8yilG_KQstaKoFHlAdwF_FPQdFIh3r2PBChxkbz0FUF1cdlwwdGSH_vCELVl_95jP4i_QGEZYv/s320/Telegraph2.jpg)
But no significant amount of ash was found during the flight, and this was confirmed by a walk-round after the aircraft landed back at Prestwick. That was the point being driven home by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary: his complaint was that predictions of volcanic ash concentration had been wrong.
That was also reinforced by a press release on the Ryanair website. All that the Telegraph needed to do was look there before leaping. Or read the body of their own report.[UPDATE: The Telegraph has now changed its headline]
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