When volcanic ash stopped a Jumbo at 37000 feet (2010)

As noted in the article -

> Eventually, after quarter of an hour without any power, the engines were brought back to life.

In fact, every time your pilot/flight attendant announces that you are on descent to your destination airport, the pilots will have pulled the throttle back to flight idle, and your aircraft is essentially gliding down towards the airport. Engines are pretty much not spooled back up until you are on finals, and the undercarriage/flaps etc. are causing a lot of drag necessitating engine power again to maintain approach speed.

Jumbo jets are an entirely different beast. You're starting and stopping procedures are similar to any other commercial jet, however large swaths of the plane are entirely computer controlled. this includes jet engine ignition and reignition in case of flameouts. Elevation rate and descent rate are also computer controlled. Pilots in turn are saddled with phonebook sized procedure and countermeasure manuals that determine what to do in the event of anything even remotely out of the ordinary from cracked windshields to broken elevators.

The fact that these pilots could recover from a massive engine shutdown of this nature is remarkable, as most pilots are trained to "never stop flying the plane" in the event of a failure. all engines offline means they either had to engage the APU mid flight to help power auxiliary systems, or they were struggling to manually move hydraulics without any assist. Pilots are trained that engines go through ingestion testing to handle anything and everything, so its not surprising they thought nothing of the ash...A Rolls Royce Trent engine might not seem that large but each one delivers nearly 100,000 pounds of thrust. This, combined with a 10 stage compressor, is enough to overcome even the most furious rainstorms.

I find something very entertaining when I hear stories of pilots/air traffic controllers communications during emergencies/exciting situations that are extremely calm.

It reminds me of the classic SR-71 Blackbird "Speed Check" story.

Edit: For those unfamiliar, the story is here http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-107912704...

I recall the episode mentioning that the passengers and crew from this flight have stayed in contact and held occasional reunions ever since.

[1] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4cs1ys

In this case, the sanest thing to do was to try and try again to restart the engines.

Does anyone here have a perspective on the engineering that would be required to build ash-proof engines? Perhaps similarly, drone/bird-proof engines?