Narrative:

Plane loaded early. Received dangerous goods (dg) paperwork with accessible dg. Two full pallets; one of flammable liquid; one of oxidizer. These pallets were placed next to each other in 2L and 3L. As this was a wide body cargo aircraft; no firefighting capability with pallets containing hazardous material.the flight operations manual (fom) has two statements concerning separation that apply. One; incompatible classes must be separated by 3 feet and the second is that for separation requirements; if the dg is contained in different uld containers; that suffices for required separation. I was not comfortable with a full pallet of flammable liquid right next to a full pallet of incompatible oxidizer with nothing but less than 12 inches of space and a little saran wrap between them. Consulted with the ramp agent and specialist and was informed they could move one haz pallet to allow more room between them. I agreed and accepted responsibility for the resulting delay; the ramp personnel opted to bump the flammable liquid pallet; leaving only the oxidizer which did resolve our issue.a review of the separation requirements might be good; as I'm not sure this is the situation envisioned when the second statement was added. My concern in this dg situation was safety. I was willing to take all the dg material; just wanted a bit more space between the pallets. Please review the fom separation requirements. Do not remove the crewmembers from the dg review procedures; as this may keep a dg incident from occurring.

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Widebody cargo aircraft Captain reported noticing during preflight incorrect loading of hazardous materials. Aircraft was reloaded properly.

Narrative: Plane loaded early. Received Dangerous Goods (DG) paperwork with accessible DG. Two full pallets; one of flammable liquid; one of oxidizer. These pallets were placed next to each other in 2L and 3L. As this was a Wide body cargo aircraft; no firefighting capability with pallets containing hazardous material.The Flight Operations Manual (FOM) has two statements concerning separation that apply. One; incompatible classes must be separated by 3 feet and the second is that for separation requirements; if the DG is contained in different ULD containers; that suffices for required separation. I was not comfortable with a full pallet of flammable liquid right next to a full pallet of incompatible oxidizer with nothing but less than 12 inches of space and a little Saran wrap between them. Consulted with the ramp agent and specialist and was informed they could move one Haz pallet to allow more room between them. I agreed and accepted responsibility for the resulting delay; the ramp personnel opted to bump the flammable liquid pallet; leaving only the oxidizer which did resolve our issue.A review of the separation requirements might be good; as I'm not sure this is the situation envisioned when the second statement was added. My concern in this DG situation was safety. I was willing to take all the DG material; just wanted a bit more space between the pallets. Please review the FOM separation requirements. Do not remove the crewmembers from the DG review procedures; as this may keep a DG incident from occurring.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.