Alaska volcano erupts, passengers on flight capture the sight

This is the moment an airline passenger captured an amazing image of an Alaskan volcano erupting sending ash 20,000 feet into the air.

The image was captured by a passenger travelling on a Penair flight from Dutch Harbor to Anchorage in Alaska yesterday evening.

He said that he had heard that the Pavlof Volcano on the Aluetian Islands had begun to erupt ash so the pilot flew his plane closer in order for passengers to get a better look.

The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the eruption of Pavlof Volcano yesterday afternoon.

The agency said that the volcano, which is 600 miles southwest of Anchorage, erupted at 4.18pm local time and also led to tremors on the ground.

They also raised the volcano alert level to ‘warning’ and the aviation warning to ‘red’.

However, despite the eruption there are no reports of evacuations taking place or the ash affecting flights in the region.

The USGS says that the volcano, which is about 4.4 miles in diameter, has had 40 known eruptions and is ‘one of the most consistently active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc.

The agency added that during a previous eruption in 2013, ash plumes rose 27,000 feet, while other eruptions have generated clouds as high as 49,000 feet.

The community closest to the volcano is Cold Bay, which is about 37 miles south west of it.

Pavlof is in a volcano-rich, sparsely populated region about 625 miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the volcano has erupted more than 40 times in recorded history.

It is Alaska’s second most active volcano, the first being Shishaldin, which has had about 55 eruptions.

Pavlof is among 52 historically active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc of the ‘Ring of Fire’ string of volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean.