Kilauea lava flow - July 29th, 2018

On July 29th I took the opportunity to get in a helicopter without any doors and fly over the lava flowing to the sea from Fissure #8 on the Kilauea volcano on the big island in Hawaii. We were there for my daughter's wedding a few days later on Oahu but planned to take a few days ahead of the wedding to explore the big island and hoped to see some volcanic activity. The park is closed as they are a bit concerned about what tourists would do if they had access to the lava flow and due to unpredictable earthquakes and release of dangerous gas. The park visitor center has many many cracks from the earthquakes. All the roads near the lava were closed and guarded by the local police and the national guard. There are only 2 ways to see the lava, by helicopter or by special boats that can view the lava flowing into the sea but not the lava river and the erupting fissure. I booked the helicopter 2 months in advance on the hopes that the lava would still be flowing.

Who knew that we would see it at its peak and that it would stop flowing less than a week later after several months of historical record breaking highest flow ever recorded.
In this picture we are looking towards the fissure that is erupting at the top of the image and flowing down through the bottom of the image. It flows all the way to the sea which we were also able to fly over. My guess is that you see about 3 to 5 miles worth of the flow in this image from top to bottom..

It is hard to convey how this felt. With no door we could feel the heat of the lava below us and we could even feel some of the turbulence caused by the heat and updraft. Needless to say it was quite the rush.
Read less