Following four recent incidents of dangerous goods occurrences involving undeclared and/or mis-declared lithium batteries in air cargo that were exported from Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region’s Civil Aviation Department (CAD) recently told forwarders, handlers and airlines to exercise “extra vigilance”.

Among the four cases, three of them involved lithium batteries which were found emitting smoke during cargo disassembling in the warehouse of the destination or transit stop. In each case the batteries were immediately extinguished and no one was injured, but the CAD highlighted the incidents revealed “serious deficiencies” in the air cargo supply chain.

Two areas were specifically highlighted in the circular: The use of false or inadequate descriptions and mis-declared packing instructions. On the first, the descriptions declared on the Air Waybill or manifest for all the occurrences did not fully reflect all the contents of the concerned air cargo, the CAD said.

The nature of goods described on the Air Waybill or manifest were mostly related to “mobile phone accessories”, “tablet accessories”, “camera accessories”, “laptop accessories” and “jump starter”. Although lithium batteries were not declared in these cases, they were found in the concerned cargo.

In one of the occurrences, despite the declaration of ‘Lithium Ion Batteries in Compliance with Section II of PI967’, the energy level of the concerned lithium batteries were found exceeding 100Wh. In such case the batteries should have been classified and packed in accordance with Section I requirements, the circular noted.

“In view of the serious potential hazards associated with the improper handling of lithium batteries in air transport, the airlines, issuing carriers’ agents, handling agents and freight forwarders are reminded to exercise extra vigilance when offering cargo reservations to shippers who are new to your company, or if your company has no direct contact with the shippers but only deals with them through one or more intermediate parties in the air cargo supply chain.

“Freight forwarders and air cargo acceptance personnel are also strongly urged to seek confirmation from shippers about the actual contents of the shipment in case of doubt,” the CAD said in its circular.