Flightmech;
In most cases I bet the shipper has no idea what the consequences of not declaring dg could be to an aircraft and its crew. I don't think there is any intent there. Absolute stupidity and a total disregard of responsibility is what it is.
In the days when we had the Dangerous Goods Manuals on board, (they are no longer provided to the crew, at least where I worked) so we could look up and verify what we were carrying, we were handed a DG Advice of a shipment of "Flourine gas, 4 canisters, N.O.S.". We looked it up in the DG Manual and it specified "Cargo aircraft only". Though we caused a delay, we had the shipment taken off the aircraft.
We did the flight again the next day. Again, we were handed DG advice showing the same shipment was on the aircraft. Again we delayed the flight while the shipment was removed.
Later the next day I thought I would try something. I phoned our cargo people at the shipment's destination to see if "my" shipment of flourine gas had arrived. It had.
Stupidity? "Terrorism?" Neither, in my opinion. "We" were the problem in someone's mind and this was just someone or a few different people, with, as you observe, an abominable absence of imagination, trying to "do the right thing" as the shipment had been accepted for delivery and they wanted the customer happy.
Whether anybody was aware of the cargo-only designation, I did not find out; it was in the DG Manual. The irregularity went to the regulator and I believe the shipper was banned; not sure what occurred "internally".
Apparently we followed United's example of removing the DG Manual from the flight deck, (can anyone from United comment, please? Do you guys carry the DG book? Anyone?) We were told that the cargo people would be checking appropriateness for shipping and that we didn't have to do that anymore. Though not flying anymore, I still think it's wrong.
Thinking about the removal logically, unless the assessment was made that consulting the manual was somehow "ineffective" and therefore pointless, it can't otherwise be safety-related and it can't be weight so it must be economic - as in keeping the manual up to date and spending time training crews how to use the manual effectively. Also, perhaps it was a "source of departure delays" ?...
I flew the DC8 freighter for a number of years. Then, and perhaps now, it's a different world than carrying passengers. In my experience, the care taken with passenger flights was apparent - with freight, not always so. It's always a rush to load and depart and always something abnormal to deal with such as broken floor locks, (nevermind the chemicals - more than one departure had stuff slide on takeoff) or broken, leaking packaging. Perhaps a factor not often mentioned is, freighters almost always operate during crews' low-circadian cycle times. The goal that drives all this is a satisfied shipping customer, and making money.
The discussion concerning solutions to fire on board freighters offered here which vary in practicality and/or effectiveness, (
EVAS, Gas-filled bags for viewing instruments, robust fire-fighting equipment in upper and lower decks, parachutes, etc etc, and all the problems that freight dogs know about which haven't even been described here) don't address those human factors issues we all are aware of, of the obvious human factor of good people making a rare bad decision or a mistake they didn't catch in time, while satisfying the main "goal" described above. The solutions offered belong to the "symptoms" discourse, not the discourse of "originating factors".
The answer isn't more regulation or disciplinary proceedings or even wages, etc. As it has always been with hijacking, the place to stop the risk of fire on board due to inappropriate shipping, packaging etc, (as described above), is on the ground.
While stringent SOPs and tactical provisions are in place in the air, hijacking is almost exclusively prevented before flight. The place to stop risk of fire on board is similarly on the ground.
Clearly, the exceptions are SW111 and a few other accidents which have other antecedents.
The one common theme in the thread is, Once smoke is confirmed, get the aircraft on the ground. I always wondered about the options and what we would do over the Pacific, thousands of miles from any airport...
PJ2