Agence France-Presse: British Airways launched a test flight Sunday, with chief executive Willie Walsh on board, to check the volcanic ash cloud’s impact on its planes, a spokeswoman told AFP. The plane took off from London Heathrow Airport for a two to three hour sortie westwards over Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean before returning to land at Cardiff, where there BA has an engineering and maintenance base. “The aircraft was airborne at 5:58 pm,” the spokeswoman said. “The purpose of the …