OTTAWA - A massive plume of volcanic ash spreading over Europe has grounded Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a delegation of Canadian political leaders in Ottawa.
Harper was among dozens of world leaders who had planned to attend Sunday's state funeral for Polish president Lech Kaczynski and his wife in Krakow, Poland.
But European airspace restrictions due to the dangerously abrasive Icelandic ash cloud, which can stall out jet engines, have made Harper's flight "not possible and not advisable," his spokesman said Saturday.
Harper's departure from Ottawa aboard an aging military Airbus 310 was first pushed back to the afternoon and then cancelled altogether as the plume from a volcano in Iceland continues to pump microscopic glass and stone particles into the upper atmosphere.
The European air navigation safety agency Eurocontrol has issued airspace restrictions covering 23 countries, Poland included. And with continuing volcanic eruptions Saturday, no one can predict when flights may safely resume.
"Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight," Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told The Associated Press.
"With the safe conduct of flight operations a prime concern, Eurocontrol advises that clearance will not be issued for aircraft to penetrate contaminated airspace and airports ...," Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said at a midday briefing. "Unfortunately, Polish airspace is also affected."
While Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy still planned to fly to Poland, Soudas said the Canadian military which flies the prime minister did not see an opening for a Canadian arrival.
"Regrettably, a window of opportunity has not presented itself," said Soudas. "We've been advised that the dangers are real and for security purposes, obviously, it remains impossible for the prime minister to be able to travel there."
U.S. President Barack Obama also scrapped his plans to travel to Poland due to hazardous flying conditions posed by the ash cloud. Obama was to leave Washington on Saturday night for Sunday's state funeral. U.S. ambassador to Poland, Lee Feinstein, will now represent the United States at the service.
So far, delegations from at least a dozen countries, including Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Japan, South Korea and India, have cancelled plans to attend the funeral.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was one of the latest to cancel her travel plans after a return from the U.S. was complicated by flight restrictions, leaving her driving homeward from Rome on Saturday.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois were to have joined Harper. Instead, the country will be represented by its ambassador in Poland, Dan Costello.
Canada will also be forwarding the flag from the Peace Tower that flew on Thursday during a national day of morning, along with a Polish flag from inside the parliament buildings and books of condolence signed by parliamentarians, staff and the public.
The Polish president died last Saturday when his own aging military transport crashed in heavy fog as it approached Smolensk, Russia, for a service to honour 22,000 Polish officers killed by the Soviet secret police in 1940.
Among the 96 people who died in the crash were numerous lawmakers, the central bank governor, the commanders of Poland's armed forces and the head of its Olympic committee.
At a ceremony Saturday in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the crash "the greatest tragedy in Poland since the war."
Polish security estimates Sunday's state funeral in Krakow will attract close to a million mourners.
