15 Spanish airports closed because of ash

MADRID, May 8 (UPI) -- Fifteen Spanish airports were shut down Saturday afternoon because of a drifting ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, officials said.

Aena, Spain's national air traffic control agency, said the closing would be in place until at least 6 p.m. local time, the BBC reported. Flights into and out of nine airports in Spain were banned in the early morning and six more airports were added at noon.

Eurocontrol said the ash cloud was also affecting trans-Atlantic air travel with flights being rerouted around it.

In Britain, meteorologists said the cloud is 1,200 miles long with ash rising as high as 30,000 feet.

Eyjafjallajokull's eruption caused chaos last month when most European airspace was closed for days. Thousands of people were stranded or had vacations disrupted.