1. Mt Sakurajima & Kagoshima airport view from the control tower (26 Apr ’10)
Now I’d like to present you a recent activity of Mt Sakurajima and operation of Kagoshima airport.
This view is from the control tower of Kagoshima airport.
The top of column is 9,400ft at that time.
Large size of ash already fall right side of ash cloud and top of cloud moving toward the airport.

2. Location of Kagoshima airport & Mt Sakurajima
VOR/DME
Final approach fix
at 3,100ft
ILS R/W 34
at 3,100 ft
Distance ; 25 km
Direction 200ﾟ
This is the satellite view of southern Kyushu Island.
Kagoshma airport is located 25km(14nm) north of Mt Sakurajima.
R/W34 ILS final approach course is located 17km(9nm) east of the mountain.
When we use VOR/DME approach to R/W16, approach course is 30km(16nm) apart from the mountain.
In each case, arrival aircrafts have to fly lower altitude for several minutes in the volcanic influential area.
Cause of the mountain, we can not establish ILS on the R/W16.
But we have R-NAV straight in approach to R/W16, but 1/3 of aircraft operating on the Kagoshima airport have not capability to execute RNAV.
Location of Kagoshima airport & Mt Sakurajima

3. Number of Volcanic eruption at Mt Sakurajima latest 5 years
This figure shows the Mt Sakurajima is increasing volcanic activity since last spring.
Japan Met Ofc

4. Number of Volcanic eruption at Mt Sakurajima in a year
Calendar year
2009
１ ２ ３ ４ ５ ６ ７ ８ ９ Total
Adjacent one year
７ ８ ９ １ ２ ３ ４ ５ ６ Total
,056
These lists are shown the number of volcanic eruptions in each month, and upper side of table shows 548 eruptions occurred in the last calendar year.
Lower table shoes, more than 1,000 times volcanic eruption occurred in recent one year.

5. Number of days of occurrence wind direction between 180゜to 200゜ (1999-2008)
This line chart shows (read the title) and we can see the possibility of southerly wind.
The height of Mt Sakurajima is about 3,700ft and green line of 850 hPa indicates 5,000ft, blue line of 700hPa is 10,000ft.
We have many chance to get volcanic ash in spring and summer, especially between July and September, when the mountain erupted.
Ref; The day of wind is at 9 am, because of release time of radiosonde.

6. Magnified volcanic ash
5 Nov ’09 at the airport
This photo is volcanic ash fall in the airport. Each scale put in 1mm distance and each width 0.1 mm.
This photo shows, most of ash have 10 to 100 um(0.01 to 0.1 mm) in diameter.
1 ㎜ ; line width 0.1㎜

7. Time line Information flow of volcanic activity ( e.g. 27 May ’10 )
Eruption
NOTAM
ATIS
AEIS
15: : : :48 15: : :58
V A
Observation
Report
V A Advisory
SIGMET WX
office
CAB
This is an example of time line to issue each information following the eruption.
We had 3 minutes interval between the eruption and receiving “VA Observation Report” from the Meteorological Watch Offices.
This information reported by dedicated line and shows on the display of the controller console.
VA advisory will issue out side of facility and agencies and depend on this information will issue a SIGMET and NOTAM.
Ref, SIGMET; Significant Meteorological Information
ATIS; Automatic Terminal Information Service
AEIS; Aeronautical En-route Information Service
NOTAM; NOtice To Air Men

8. We need a real time information of the eruption to handle the aircrafts flying around the airport.
So, we are doing visual observation from the tower and watching live camera all the time in the Approach control room.

9. Hight of the volcanic ash column
Through Apr ’09 to Mar ‘10
Altitude
reaching
This bar graph shows the( read the title).
We had 880 eruptions though last April and this March.
Average of top of column were 6,200 ft and which of 12 eruptions exceeded 10,000 ft.
Highest ash column was 16,000ft.
Number of occurrences

10. Viewability of marking sign
These photo show (read the title)
When we have 0.1mm thick of ash on the ground, smoke of ash appears in the air during takeoff and landing.
Then 0.3 mm thick, we can see no making on the ground and we have much smoke in the air during takeoff and landing and decreasing braking action.
When the eruption was occurred at night, out of operational hour, we will sweep the movement area until beginning of operation hour of 7:30.
More than 0.5 mm thick of ash fall on the ground, poor visibility will occur during take off and landing and it needs a few minutes to settle down the ash.
No more operation will continue in case of a few millimeter thick of ash on the ground.

11. This table is the guidance of “read the title”, witch is agreed with the operators using the airport in 9 Mar this year.
Longitudinal line from the left are indicate ”thickness of deposit ash”, ”visibility”, ”phenomenon”, ”expecting measures ” .
Affects to aircraft will occur around thickness of 0.2 ㎜.
Sweeping on the runway, taxi way and ramp area will commence at a few millimeter thick of ash.
Ref; Our experienced maximum amount of ash is 3 ㎜ at Kagoshima airport in Aug 1976.

12. Number of aircrafts deviated from the volcanic ash
These bar graph show (read the title) and left side of graph was March and right side of it is April in this year.
73％(74％ for Mar, 72％ for Apr) of deviated aircrafts are arrival.
26％(25％ for Mar, 27％ for Apr) of these are departure.
Cause of result is as I mentioned in the paper, arriving aircraft have to fly lower altitude during several minutes and average of volcanic ash column is 6,200ft.
On the contrary, departure will reach 7,000ft or above at the influential area and have a lot of flexibility to the route.
Total 360 aircrafts
(121 eruptions)
Total 251 aircrafts
(100 eruptions)

13. Deviation from the ash when visibility more than 3,200m
RNAV R/W16
VOR/A
RNAV R/W16
Kagoshima Airport
Ash flow
Mt Sakurajima
Deviation from the ash when visibility more than 3,200m

14. Kagoshima Airport
Mt Sakurajima
10,000ft+
SID for R/W34

15. Kagoshima Airport
7-8,000ft
Mt Sakurajima
SID for R/W16

16. Road sweeper collects ash
Firecar is used to wet ash rather than ash away.
Fire car
wash ash away and settled

17. Recirculating air Tｙｐｅ
Type of road sweeper
Recirculating air Tｙｐｅ
; Adapted at Kagoshima airport
Main brush
Dust separator
Broom Type
; Using in the Kagoshima city
These pictures show (read the title)
・Vacuum Suction type is most typical type of road sweeper
It just like vacuum cleaner using in the house and we used this type of the car until this spring.
The vacuum will capture the dust, but leak almost of the volcanic ash out of the vent.
・Broom type is popular among small size of road sweeper.
Large size of this type is used in the Kagoshima and adjacent city for volcanic ash sweeping.
・Recirculating air type has a centrifugal function.
Its function used to separate the fine dust from exhaust air.
So we chose this type of the car since in this Jun.
Maker’s home page address ;
Vacuum Suction Type
; Most typical & last used

18. Correcting to the manual
Doc#9691
Term is explained about Mt Sakurajima in Japan
Sentence is････while the eruptions are often of an explosive type,
accompanied by explosion earthquakes and atmospheric shock waves,
the usually only last a few hours with columns reach
in a maximum height of 3km.
Comment is;
climbing velocity of the column is 10 to 20m/s, so it
can reach to 3,000m in a few minutes.

19. Thank you for your attention