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It’s a lot denser and it can clog things.
The engine uses air for many things, some compressor bleed air will be used to operate mechanisms of the engine.
For example some thrust reverser deployment.
Some sensors of the engine computer. The air conditioning and pressurization of the plane.
For this reason alone you are at risk of faulty thrust reversers, faulty engine control, faulty pressurization.
Then there’s the direct clogging of engine power production, such as clogging of fuel nozzles air passages that swirls the fuel in the chamber, leading to combustion chamber failures due to poor fuel spray pattern, with partial or total loss of power.
Blockage or jamming of bleed air valves may force the engine to surge or stall at reduced power settings, leading to complete engine loss at landing, preventing to reject a landing. Just with this you are risking to be forced to an emergency landing with no second try.
This considering just severe ingestion of light particles. And the above are all no-go items in the sense that such faults need repair or deactivations to be flown. You can’t legally fly into that situation, it’s not allowed by rules. You are allowed to fly into things that are normal, never allowed to fly people taking chances.
Then if engine ingests rocks… compressor blades rotate at 1000kmh, ingesting stuff at 1000kmh, that’s gun bullet speed. You are literally machine gunning the blades. It’s not a good idea.
For comparison, forest fires don’t have a smoke plume that reach the altitudes of planes, and doesn’t contain rock particles but wood ash particles, that are incredibly light. And still you don’t fly into forest fire smoke with passengers on board. Dedicated firefighting planes can, but that’s a specific job with specific training.
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