Kuwait Oil Fire Plume Experiment          

            Just after Desert Storm Dr. Bandy a team of other scientist was selected by the Federal Government to determine the environmental consequences of the emissions from the burning oil wells.  With very little lead-time the NSF/UCAR Lockheed Electra was loaded with instruments and deployed to Bahrain and Kuwait.  About 20 mission were flown to determine the composition of the plume and how the plume chemistry changed as it dispersed.  Dr. Bandy deployed  two instruments for determining a wide range of sulfur compounds.  It turned out that the plume did not rise high enough that it could disperse dangerous compounds very far from the source.  Of course it could have been different if the fires had been hotter and thus have risen higher.  In the ferry flights to and from Bahrain, Dr. Bandy mapped the concentration of atmospheric OCS over Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, France and Italy.

Oil well fires raging after the Gulf War  as seen from the
research aircraft.

Dr. Alan Bandy flying over Kuwait sampling the pollutants
with  a GC instrument and a Flame Photometer Detector.

Protecting sample inlets on the plane between flights from
desert storms.
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