Dangerous Goods

[Harmonic_Vibe]

Hi everybody, I just started working in Canada again after a hiatus and am being reminded about a few things in the Canadian industry that I had (thankfully) forgotten. I'm feeling the urge to rant about this because I think it's nonsense.

 

One of my friends just showed me some of the results of a Dangerous Goods audit at another company and I'm fairly annoyed right now. The auditors' (TC DG guys) report cited numerous examples of non-compliance with regulations. They specifically singled out pilots hauling Fly-tanks around with no paperwork from the "Shipper" and no acceptance paperwork from the helicopter company. Just to clarify this a little, they are saying that when Billy Bob fills the fly tank for you to haul he should be filling out a "Shipper's Declaration" and you should be filling out the requisite forms when "accepting" the load. This is past ridiculous and fast approaching preposterous.

 

What are the Dangerous Goods regulations for? They are to protect Airline/Trucking/Train/etc companies, and the public, from goods that could be hazardous to the safety of the form of conveyance, the personnel involved or the public. It is certainly a good thing that people can't hide things in cardboard boxes and put others at risk, knowingly or not, by transporting dangerous items in an unsafe fashion. It is certainly nice that if there's any doubt about the safety of an item we have the means to investigate further and the protection of law to refuse to haul something that may endanger our aircraft and us. That being said, I have been doing this for almost 15 years and have never been faced with such a situation... but there's always tomorrow!

 

So... what the **** do the regulations as they stand have to do with chainsaws, bear spray, flytanks, seismic batteries, etc? Basically nothing as far as I'm concerned. We are not passively accepting an unknown quantity when we are hooking up a flytank or flying bags on a seismic job. We are an integral part of the job and as such we are very aware of the safe and unsafe way to transport things. If a chainsaw was sent as air cargo on an airline flight, the gas and oil could certainly pose a hazard. A 300 gallon flytank would certainly not be allowed in the cargo hold of any aircraft I would care to fly in. However, when these things are loaded in a utility basket on the outside of the aircraft for a 3 minute flight to the field (chainsaws, gas cans, bear spray, etc) or hooked onto the end of a 100-150 foot longline (flytanks, seismic batteries, dynamite, caps, etc) they are no more dangerous to us than anything else we would care to fly.

 

The spirit of the regulations is certainly right, but the application when applied to helicopters is patently ridiculous. I don't know what recourse we have, but if I have to start landing and getting paper from Billy Bob declaring it's Jet Fuel in the tank he just filled in front of me, and if I have to fill out an acceptance form for him saying I am willing to fly the load a couple of miles, then the job just lost a whole lot of the "fun factor" for absolutely no good reason.

 

And that's one man's opinion...

 

HV

[Reddog]

It has nothing to do with safety or common sense, it is all about paper shuffling weinies that wouldn't know one end of a long line from the other, probably because they spent their entire careers on aircraft with zero rotor rpm.

[Twinpac]

Thank crap I haul dynamite, jet fuel, batteries, diesel, Coca Cola, do hovering exits/entrances in a far flung places away from these twats that think if 5 rules are good.....25 outta be 5 times better.

The food sucks...my phone bill equals a good yearly income here....but we're havin' heaps of fun here in the wild wild west!

[CD]

The spirit of the regulations is certainly right, but the application when applied to helicopters is patently ridiculous. I don't know what recourse we have...

 

It's been awhile since I have had to find my way through the DG regulations so I'm not certain if the situation you describe is a Canadian requirement or something mandated in the ICAO TI's. Certainly, it would seem reasonable to recognize differences for rotorcraft operations the same as they do for medevacs.

 

Here is one source that you could try for clarification:

 

Transport Canada Dangerous Goods Standards

How To Reach Us - Headquarters

 

twinpac...

 

Please, don't tease the dog - you know how dangerous and corrosive that Coca Cola is!

[407 Driver]

The worst example of a TC DG inspector that we came across was ...

 

we got busted for our standard 24VDC GPI refuelling pump, filter and hose assy. It was not packaged and labeled according to Dangerous Goods Regulations :shock:

 

Thankfully, it was resolved quickly, before every bush operated helicopter in Canada was grounded.

 

remember the new TC motto, "we're not happy until you're not happy"

[VERTICAL REF]

Vibrator, thank goodness you are back! Since you have left these TDG regulations have been getting way outta hand.

 

I could see the problem with Billy Bob but what if it was Angelina??? remember the days when you had to put on the fight reports "tdg flown"

 

 

So where you hanging your skull wax, er i mean skull cap these days?

 

Sorry buddy!

[bleed air]

407D...I'm pretty sure that's been their motto for quite some time now!

[kjw57]

HV the short answer to your queston...YES!