...Live! http://www.flightradar24.com/

[EDIT Unsurprisingly as news of the site has spread rapidly today, the server is very busy. You may need to refresh a few times before it will let you in.... the config panel is supposed to have a user count, but whenever I've been in today it's stated "Too many users!"]

So far, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden appear to have closed down their airspace.
Helpfully, the Health Protection Agency have advised there's no health risk from the plume (unless you're flying a plane through it...)

Here's apparently what the Captain of the 1982 flight in which all four engines temporarily failed told his passengers - talk about understatement!

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are all doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."

[EDIT: helps to get the year right!]

And for want of an excuse to fill up some space, here are some basic rules of flying:

1. Every take off is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again!

3. Flying isn't dangerous. The crashing is what's dangerous.

4. It`s always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.

5. The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.

8. A "good" landing is one from which you can walk away. A "great" landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

10. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the gate!

11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival = small probability of survival and vice versa.

12. Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.

13. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another aircraft going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

14. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you have made.

15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

16. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

17. Helicopters can't fly; they`re just so freaking ugly the Earth repels them. (Mind you,I always thought it was the Power of Prayer that kept them up!)

18. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

19. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminium going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

20. Good judgement comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgement.

21. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

22. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

23. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's not subject to appeal.

24. The three most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago.