Panel to probe security lapse at Kochi airport

Kochi: The omission on the part of the authorities that resulted in chemically hazardous material being loaded onto an international aircraft at the Nedumbassery airport will be taken up at the next meeting of the Aerodrome Safety Committee, said Collector M. Beena, who is the chairperson of the committee.
A consignment of hydrochloric acid was loaded onto a Doha-bound Qatar Airways aircraft on Wednesday after it was wrongly declared as medical equipment. The material was detected after fumes emanated from the consignment while it was being loaded onto the aircraft, which had 156 passengers and nine crew members on board.
Out of 100 pieces of the consignment, 98 had already been loaded when the mistake was detected and they had to be off-loaded. A similar incident took place on July 25 last when a consignment containing chemicals with low inflammable intensity was not detected by the multi-level cargo security screening and reached Chennai by a Kingfisher aircraft. Two days later, an inbound consignment from Jeddah without proper documents got up to the final point of being loaded onto a Jet Airways flight to Chennai.
The police have registered a case against those involved in Wednesday's incident, under the aircraft safety rules and for careless handling of hazardous material.
28/01/11 The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Jan 2011, Cargo Jan 2011, Jet Airways Jan 2011, Safety Jan 2011