Correction
DEPARTMENTS
Dispatches
A statement, picked up from published reports and run in the November 1985 issue of FIRE ENGINEERING, erroneously stated that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) backed Japan Airlines in encouraging the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to allow unlimited amounts of hazardous materials to be carried on passenger airliners.
In response to this, an NFPA official stated that: “The NFPA is certainly not in favor of increasing the amount of hazardous materials transported in passenger aircraft. Our position on the proposed rule change would be the same as that put forth by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Airline Pilots Association in opposition to any increment.”
The present DOT regulation allows for 50 pounds of hazardous materials to be carried in each cargo pit of passenger airlines, said a DOT spokesman; but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the three cargo pits of a 747 are fully loaded. Many carriers impose their own, more stringent restrictions on the amount and types of hazardous materials that they will transport, and will often carry these materials only during off-peak hours.
The spokesman explained that 3%-4% of all passenger air cargo is classified as “dangerous goods.” The nine hazard classes include: explosives; compressed gas; flammable gases or liquids; combustible items; oxidizing substances or organic peroxides; poisons; radioactive materials; corrosives; and other associated items such as dry ice.
There are also safety factors such as the packaging of hazardous materials that must be considered. For example, if you want to send 25 gallons of paint (which can be classed as a flammable or combustible liquid depending on its ignition temperature), restrictions may allow for only one quart of paint per package. Therefore, you would have to package 100 parcels, and the weight of the packaging is included as part of the hazardous material weight, explained the spokesman.
An Air Transportation Association official elaborated on this point. People aren’t begging to air transport the full, say, 200-pound load of a flammable liquid commodity, he said; however, by having to divide the hazardous material into four bins and place it on four separate aircraft, you increase its exposure to the elements, the amount of times it has to be handled, and the law of averages of something going wrong.
The 1985 fatal accident rate involving regularly scheduled United States airlines flying large planes was nearly four times greater than in 1984, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a NEW YORK TIMES report. There were 18 crashes among the major carriers last year, with a death toll of 329. There were 17 accidents involving commuter airlines in which 35 people died, down from 48 in 1984. Private and business aircraft suffered 490 fatal accidents in which 937 people died.
At presstime, the issue of raising the amount of hazardous materials that can be carried on passenger airlines was “on the back burner,” said the DOT spokesman.
