Jet damaged by ash after inadvertently entering an eruption cloud f...

This Boeing 747 suffered more than $80 million US in damage due to an encounter with an ash cloud over southern Alaska in December 1989. For more than 4 terrifying minutes on December 15, 1989, a powerless Boeing 747 with 231 passengers aboard plunged in silence towards the rugged, snow-covered mountains 90 miles north of Anchorage, Alaska. Fine ash and a strong odor of sulfur filled the cockpit and cabin as the flight crew donned oxygen masks and initiated emergency procedures to restart all four engines that flamed out when the aircraft inadvertently entered an eruption cloud from Redoubt Volcano 150 miles away.