To illustrate some of the consequences of shutting down the air space: All air ambulance or rescue helicopters are grounded. Two incidents have surfaced so far, several more to come:

- A heart problem had to go by supply vessel (12 hour journey) from oil platform to shore, and then by ambulance to hospital. Compare that with a round trip flight time of one hour, i.e. wait for less than half an hour, then less than half an hour flight time that takes you to the top of the hospital.

- A guy with an amputated hand and the only hospital capable of fixing that is on the other side of the country. The regular 8 hour car ride was done in ambulance in 6 hour, which is according to his doctor is "within the time frame for these kind of operations". You have to experience the really bad Norwegian roads to really appreciate what that ambulance driver managed to pull off. (Hint: In the U.S. I use a 60 miles per hour for a conservative estimate of my average speed including breaks and minor traffic delays. In rural parts of Norway, I use 37 miles per hour... (60 km/h).)


Not much we can do about it. Luckily, once you're in the hands of professionals, time of transport is rarely THAT critical. Still, some poor sod is inevitably going to die if this lasts.