Eideard

After every flight, United Parcel Service pilots fill out a form, called a ‘gripe sheet,’ which tells mechanics about problems they experienced with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that the UPS ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers…
*
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
*
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
*
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
*
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what friction locks are for. (my personal favorite)
*
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.
*
P:Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
*
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
*
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from the midget.

Can’t wait to pass this one along. I am the only member of my New Mexico extended family [including my wife] who’s never piloted an aircraft. I get to hear everyone’s war stories. They’ll love this.

A partial list btw. Click over to here for the complete list.

Thanks to adollyciousirony

The wreck of a British cargo ship carrying 7 million ounces of silver that was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1941 has been identified. Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc., announced Monday that it had located and verified the wreck of the SS Gairsoppa approximately 300 miles west of the Irish coast. The ship lies approximately 3 miles beneath the surface of the North Atlantic.

The Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled cargo ship, was in transit from Calcutta to London on February 17, 1941 with 85 people on board when it strayed from a convoy. A German submarine attacked, sinking the ship. Lifeboats were launched, but only the second officer, who washed ashore, survived.

The ship’s manifest included 2,600 tons of pig iron, and 1,765 tons of tea — and a cargo of silver ingots — which was valued then at 600,000 pounds. At today’s prices the silver would be valued at about 150 million pounds, or more than $210 million.

Because the silver shipment was insured by the U.K. government, bids were solicited for locating and salvaging the wreck. If recovered, the silver would represent the largest known precious metal cargo ever salvaged from the sea.

Under its agreement with the U.K. government, Odyssey will retain 80% of the net salved value of the silver bullion recovered.

My favorite kind of deep-sea fishing.

UPS 747-400 crashed a few minutes after takeoff from Dubai on September 3rd

Yemen has arrested a woman suspected of mailing the explosive parcels from the country to the US that sparked a global security alert. The arrest took place on Saturday in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, after security forces surrounded a house where a suspect believed to have sent the packages was hiding.

A Yemeni security official said that the woman had been traced through a telephone number she left with a cargo company…

Security officials have been on high alert since the UK and the United Arab Emirates intercepted two packages containing explosive material that were being shipped by air from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago…

Al Jazeera’s Monica Villamizar, reporting from Washington, DC…said that US investigators will now look at previously shipped packages from Yemen to determine if they were used as a “dry run” by al-Qaeda.

Police in Dubai said the package they found bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda. They also said that the ink cartridge found at the sorting facility was packed with pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN…the same substance that was packed into the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man who attempted to ignite a bomb on board an airliner over the US on December 25 last year. The police said the explosive materials were wired to a mobile phone SIM card hidden inside the printer…

The screening of cargo has been a point of debate in the US; in 2007, congress directed the Transportation Security Administration to screen all cargo carried on passenger flights beginning this year, according to US media.

“Cargo is in big pallets, it’s wrapped, its prepared for shipment,” Bob Ayers, security analyst, said. “You can’t X-ray the large pallet in many cases. You don’t tear it apart because its already been pre-packaged, so cargo has always been less rigorously inspected than baggage going into a passenger aircraft.”

Both UPS and FedEx said they had halted all packages being sent from Yemen to the US while the incident is investigated.

In September, a large fire broke out in the cargo hold of a UPS cargo jet shortly after it took off from the Dubai airport. The plane crashed, killing both crew members. Our correspondent said that investigators will probably now check to see if any cargo from Yemen was on board.

Lots of ways to build a better bomb if you’re trying to bring down a cargo plane. Cellphone triggers are the latest, preferred by many in the Middle East. By no means are methods limited to what you see used in this case.

Fire in the hold of an ocean freighter is comparatively easy to control – with early detection. Airplanes are flimsy critters at best.

UPDATE: Engineering student released after authorities discover a different woman had used the student’s name and personal information when shipping the bombs.

A South Korean cargo ship had to be turned away…after an infestation of spiders was discovered in the cargo hold.

Customs officials discovered the infestation in the MV Altavia’s cargo after the South Korean ship docked in Guam, one of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of spiders, some with bodies as big as 10 pence pieces, started pouring out of the ship’s crates as Guam’s Port Authority workers began moving the containers off the boat onto the dock, last Wednesday.

The shipment had been destined for a US military base construction site on the island for 8,000 US Marines.

The ship was told to leave the port and moor off shore while officials investigated if the species was venomous or posed any danger, Guam’s agriculture officials said.

It was then turned away completely two days later and told to return home with the spiders still on board.

“It was because of the quantity,” Joseph Torres, director of Guam’s Department of Agriculture told US military newspaper Stars and Stripes…

It is unclear what happened to the ship or spiders after the ship left Guam.

The spider species remains unidentified.

Probably on their way to Okinawa. Har!

C’mon – we only have time to do half the load, anyway

While a lot of attention has been paid in recent days to the need to find better ways to screen passengers and their luggage, as aviation security officials try to keep terrorists — or Slovak security officials — from smuggling explosives onto passenger jets, it remains an uncomfortable fact that entirely unscreened packages are still routinely loaded into the cargo holds of those same airplanes.

According to the Transportation Security Administration, it currently screens “at least 50 percent” of the packages loaded into the cargo holds of passenger jets alongside travelers’ suitcases. Last February, the security administration announced that it had “issued security directives to all air carriers requiring that they screen 50 per cent of cargo placed on passenger aircraft,” and was working to meet an August, 2010 deadline set by Congress in 2007 to ensure the screening of every package that flies on these planes.

The following month a report by the Government Accountability Office explained that “TSA’s approach relies on the voluntary participation of shippers and freight forwarders,” in a program where most of the screening is to be done by private companies at the locations where goods are loaded into boxes…

Department of Homeland Security, confirmed (questions from the Times) – “While much remains to be done to fulfill this requirement, TSA is confident that the industry is currently screening at least 50 percent of air cargo transported on passenger aircraft on flights originating in the United States and anticipates that the 100 percent screening requirement will be met by August 2010 for domestic cargo. [...]“

That makes us all feel more secure, doesn’t it? Planning on flying before August?

This fire resulted from lousy connection of an aftermarket Li-ion battery

The world’s largest pilots union said Tuesday it wants bulk shipments of lithium batteries and products containing the batteries immediately banned from passenger and cargo planes because they can start a fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it is not prepared to take emergency action on the issue.

In seeking a federal ban, the Air Line Pilots Association pointed to three incidents since June in which lithium battery shipments apparently caused fires aboard U.S. planes…

The union emphasized that it is not seeking a ban on passengers carrying electronic devices containing lithium batteries onto planes, such as laptop computers, cell phones, and cameras. Instead, the union’s concern is with cargo containing multiple batteries, either loose or inside products.

He noted that Douglass told a House panel this spring that the safety administration is working on new regulations for the shipment of lithium batteries. However, he said that if the government doesn’t act quickly, the union will ask Congress to step in.

Depending upon how votes the issue is worth, Congress may complete hearings on the topic in time for the 2012 elections.

George Kerchner, executive director of The Rechargeable Battery Association, said…the shipments cited by the pilots union probably didn’t conform to existing hazardous materials regulations and suggested the Transportation Department step up enforcement of those regulations.

Enforce regulations? Good grief.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures file photo used by permission

Russia’s Defense Ministry has said that Russian forces had rescued the crew [of the Arctic Sea] and arrested eight hijackers who commandeered a cargo ship that had seemed to vanish without trace off Portugal last month. It was the first official confirmation that the vessel had been hijacked as it traversed the Baltic Sea, prompting fears of piracy in Europe.

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said a Russian anti-submarine ship, the Ladny, freed the ship’s 15 Russian crew members 300 miles from Cape Verde in the open Atlantic on Monday, arresting eight hijackers without firing a shot, the Interfax news agency reported. The hijackers were identified only by their nationalities: four Estonians, two Latvians, and two Russians.

The hijackers apparently commandeered the ship on July 24 in Swedish waters. That day, the ship’s captain radioed its operator, Sochart, in Finland, claiming that armed men had raided the vessel ostensibly to search for drugs. The men were wearing uniforms with “police” written on them. The crew members were bound and blindfolded, and some were beaten, he said.

The captain radioed that the armed men had left the ship after 12 hours, speeding away in a small boat, it now appears they remained on board. The ship, sailing under a Maltese flag, then continued along through the Baltic Sea and the Straits of Dover between France and Britain out into the Atlantic, where the hijackers ordered the crew to switch off their navigation and communication equipment and head toward Africa, Mr. Serdyukov said…

“This doesn’t really exist in our world at all,” said Jorgen Zachau, chief of the accident investigation unit at the Swedish Transport Agency. “Of course we are aware of hijackings and pirate attacks in other parts of the world, but a case like this in the Baltic Sea or the waters around Sweden has not happened since the 17th century.”

I’m never surprised when the lawlessness acceptable in several parts of the world crops up someplace thousands of miles away. The coppers and politicians are surprised. I guess because they never read a damned thing beyond headlines and poll results.

UPDATED: The pirates wanted a couple million dollar$ ransom and threatened to scuttle the ship.

A Japan Airlines flight has been grounded at Los Angeles airport after a large object was sucked into one of the plane’s engines, officials say.

They say the incident happened as JAL flight 62 was leaving one of the airport’s gates.

Television footage showed the object – believed to be a cargo container – wedged into the engine.

All 245 passengers on board were taken off the plane and escorted to the terminal. No injuries were reported.

I love the last thing these articles always say – “An investigation is under way”.

No kidding. Do we think the bloody box jumped up into the air on its own and tried to commit suicide by leaping into the engine?

A luggage handler flew from New York to Boston after falling asleep in the cargo hold of a JetBlue airliner but was unharmed and not charged with any crime.

Massachusetts state police said the 21-year-old man was discovered in the cargo hold when the plane landed at Boston’s Logan Airport on Saturday but provided no further details…

Channel 7 News in Boston reported the man fell asleep with the luggage in New York and that baggage handlers in Boston were shocked to discover him when they opened the cargo door.

Har! I hope he had to pay his own way back home.

Michael A just returned from its trial run moving cargo between Germany, South America and North America. Reporters for German Journal on DW-TV said the vessel saved about 15% from normal fuel consumption.

Fellow editor at Dvorak Uncensored, SmartAlix, posted an early discussion of the system here.