Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 204; Flight Crew Type 3331
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Hazardous Material Violation; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Human Factors; Procedure
I was working [flight XXXX] when a FAA Hazardous Materials Aviation Safety Inspector came onboard asking what hazardous material we were carrying on the flight. I retrieved the Planned Dangerous Goods Summary that listed 1 item; 11 pounds of Flammable Liquid. He then asked if that is all the notification I had; to which I responded 'Yes'. He then told me that there was more hazardous [goods] onboard; 3 items; because he saw it going into the pit. He took a picture of my Dangerous Goods Summary and showed me a picture on his phone of some kind of manifest. I then called the Dangerous Goods Hotline and asked about the Dangerous Goods on this flight. I explained the situation to the Dangerous Goods Specialist who informed me that we in fact had 3 items loaded; but 2 were lithium batteries which have an exemption from pilot notification. Once I relayed this info to the FAA Inspector; he was happy. He wanted to ensure our procedures were correct and said he had been waiting for some time to witness a [Company] dangerous goods shipment. He then left the aircraft satisfied.The operational impact then occurred when Load Planning decided to split the batteries and flammable liquid out of an abundance of caution. After doing that; local ramp objected saying the shipment was properly packed and shipped by the same shipper and put the load back to the original state. This process of second guessing our procedures caused a 15 minute delay.
B737 Captain reported Hazmat FAA ramp check resulted in flight delay with no anomalies detected.