Federal Aviation Administration officials’ inattention may result in potentially lethal violations of government safety regulations for transporting hazardous materials such as explosive lithium batteries on commercial cargo aircraft.
Air carriers can voluntarily report inadvertent violations of hazardous material transportation regulations to the aviation administration through a 2006 program to avoid civil penalties, according to an inspector general report. However, the aviation administration consistently fails to follow up to ensure that air carriers’ subsequent corrective plans are successful, or even implemented, allowing dangerous consequences.
There were 70 incidents where lithium batteries caused onboard smoke, fire or explosions from 1991 to 2014, including one UPS airplane that “caught fire, crashed, and killed both pilots in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,” in 2010, the inspector general said.
Through the voluntary disclosure program, after an air carrier reports a violation to the administration, it must submit a plan to prevent future offenses.
However, even though the aviation administration is closing cases, it “is not obtaining evidence of completed comprehensive fixes,” the inspector general said. Investigators found no evidence that air carriers had completed essential corrections for 65 percent of the cases reviewed.
In one example discovered by investigators, an air carrier disclosed that a passenger aircraft transported a shipment of lithium batteries marked “forbidden for transport aboard passenger aircraft.” The air carrier never provided evidence that it successfully executed a corrective plan. The aviation administration closed the case anyway.
None of the closed cases examined by investigators included evidence of aviation administration approval of air carriers’ proposed corrective plans.
“FAA does not have sufficient information to determine whether air carriers have effectively mitigated the hazardous materials safety issues that the program was intended to correct,” the inspector general said. “Until these steps are taken, FAA will not be able to maximize the potential for the [program] to reduce safety risks in the National Airspace System.”
Also, nonexistent training and outdated program guidelines allowed regional administration managers to interpret rules according to their own whims, if they were even aware of the requirements.
For example, the guidelines, which haven’t been updated since their introduction nine years ago, contain no language about accepting air carriers’ voluntary disclosure after repeated violations, which could signify that they never corrected their systemic errors.
In a related development, Boeing Aircraft Company told Reuters it supports a push within the industry for an international standard on transportation of lithium batteries.
“The Boeing Company supports and advocates for global harmonised requirements related to the air transport of batteries. We support efforts to develop effective protective packaging materials to facilitate the safe shipment of lithium batteries as cargo,” the company told Reuters.
Commercial passenger and freight aircraft are allowed in the U.S. to carry containers of lithium batteries as long as their package weight doesn’t exceed 11 pounds.
