Although the volcanic ash fly/don’t fly controversy has, like the plumes, gone away, the ATSB has revealed that a Qantas Airbus A380 flew through one of the danger zones for 15 minutes about 210km north of Nadi, Fiji, just over a week ago.

The ATSB says the transit through the area was unintentional as when the jet’s flight path from Los Angeles to Melbourne was planned, it was forecast to be free of the risk.

The safety investigator says that while cruising at 40,000 feet the 450 passenger capacity jet’s pilots were advised of an updated ash forecast that said the danger zone had moved further north than previously advised and into their vicinity.

The flight crew requested and were cleared by to climb to 41, 000 feet and to deviate from track to clear the area.

The ATSB said: “It was estimated that the aircraft spent about 15 minutes in the revised area of potential volcanic ash. The flight crew advised that there was no visual or other indication of their encountering any ash. On arrival in Melbourne, the aircraft was subjected to an engine inspection with no fault found. The aircraft was released to service.”

The safety investigator also says that its initial investigation does not disclose any issues that might affect the future safety of airline operations, and isn’ t proceeding with any further investigation.

Unlike other airlines during the ash encounters that affected Australian and New Zealand flights, Qantas kept its flights grounded wherever ash was predicted to be present. Its competitors generally flew under or well clear of the predicted zones, although they also grounded their flights when the ash levels were predicted to descend to low levels.

However Qantas flights routinely fly around active volcanos ejecting ash plumes into Indonesian air space, and continued to do so throughout the crisis caused by plumes that reached Australia from the Puyehue volcanic eruption in Chile that began on June 4, but has now subsided.

The Qantas versus The Rest debate over volcanic ash avoidance degenerated into a slanging match between itself and Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia, even though the RAAF VIP fleet also continued to fly under the predicted and visible ash contaminations during that period.