Frozen Luggage?

[TG345]

I recently flew MH LHR-KUL, and when my checked bag arrived at the carousel I noticed immediately that it was covered in condensation. On opening the bag minutes later I found that the contents were very deeply chilled - almost freezing to the touch. Even a couple of hours later arriving at my hotel and taking a shower, I found that contents of my shampoo and toothpaste containers were still very cold - which made me wonder if they had actually been frozen in-flight.

Now I know from other threads that there is some facility for crew to vary the temperature of the cargo hold, but in many years of flying I have never come across a checked bag as cold as this one was. So my question to those in the know is: was this simply a routine situation which somehow I have never encountered before, or did something unusual happen on that flight?

[Bealzebub]

The main cargo holds are normally heated to around 7c unless additional heat is required for some special purpose. The actual temperatures will vary from aircraft type to aircraft type , and will depend on what additional heat is selected.

Obviously on a long flight (LHR-KUL) there will be a significant degree of cold soaking where luggage within the container bins has sufficient time to reach the ambient air temperature within the hold, and then be maintained at it. If you left your case outside all night at a temperature of 7c and then brought it inside a warm house, you would also likely find condensation on the outside, and cold contents.
Quite possibly the cargo heat supplementary heating was switched off thereby resulting in the sort of temperatures I have suggested. It is also possible that your luggage was located in a bin (or loose) close to a cargo hold door, where cold conductive (and localized convective) soaking through the metal, would also reduce the temperature of anything close by. This is similar to how cold your feet sometimes get when they are adjacent to an exit door in flight.

[Final 3 Greens]

It could be that your luggage was stored next to the tanks used for the chemtrail liquids, which require cryogenic storage at -473 degrees C - anything near that chills very quickly, just like the people on the ground, after your ircraft overflies them.

[Leezyjet]

Nice one F3G :ok:

IIRC MH use a B744 on that route, and certainly on the 744's I've worked with, there is no heating in the fwd hold, only in the rear for carriage of animals - but that has to be set on the panel in the hold prior to departure.

:)

[davidjohnson6]

-473 degrees C

Captain F3G - yer cannae break the laws o' physics ! :}

[Sultan Ismail]

Do not be surprised by the condensation, consider the humidity in KL. At the moment the air temperature is 28ºC and the Dew Point is 24ºC, so a long soak at 7ºC is going to attract a lot of condensation.

Going the other way I have been held up at Heathrow when my incoming QANTAS flight from Bangkok required 30 minutes to defrost and open the cargo doors.

[WHBM]

Having had no end of discussion over temperature/pressurisation in holds (on which I am not an expert at all) one day I stuck my Minimum/Maximum thermometer from home inside my baggage and flew UK to USA. It varied surprisingly little, only between 10 and 20. It might be that when it was stored in the baggage area at Heathrow for a couple of hours before the flight that was the coldest point.

I have received wet baggage but that was more down to substantial rain on the ground before departure where it had been stored outside before loading in bulk.

[John47]

F3G probably meant -459 F !

Would have made an interesting flight.

[763 jock]

Our 76 has FWD, AFT and BULK hold switches on the overhead panel. These provide about 7 celcius in the associated hold. There is no "OFF" light on the switch, so easy to miss during pre-flight. Reckon it would be pretty cold downstairs after a long haul sector.

[Malone]

F3G may have meant 0 degrees Kelvin of course.
This wouldn't cause any other problems as it would appear that all you need to survive such temperatures is a Parka!! (Well, that's all they needed in that crap film on the Sci-Fi channel the other day!!)
:)