B737-800
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Time Pressure
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Hazardous Material Violation; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Procedure; Company Policy; Human Factors; Manuals
This event actually happened twice; but I kept the dangerous goods form for second event and investigated cargo myself. On ZZZ-ZZZ1 flight; I was handed a dangerous goods form. It stated dangerous goods of 'Non-Flammable Gas OX' in [cargo] A1. I am an engineering major; so I immediately questioned that oxygen is non-flammable and looked below for more information. It stated that cargo was UN1072 Class Div 2.2-5.1 compressed oxygen. Now it really had my attention. It had multiple designations and I am pretty sure compressed oxygen is flammable. I could not find anything discussing this in FOM; preflight; Dangerous Goods [section] which is where it should be; but my FO (First Officer) found it under GEN Ops; Dangerous Goods. This is where it got real confusing. It apparently says that Class 2.1 Flammable Gas is okay for carriage and for Class 2.2 non-flammable gasses with subsidiary risk of Class 5.1 will not be accepted. This appeared to be what we have; so I called Cargo which immediately denied all knowledge of the issue; but gave me a number for the guy who runs dangerous goods for Operations Control. He explained to me that there was an exception (which I found in that section of FOM; but really doesn't make sense). Only company may ship compressed oxygen in a special container which supposedly makes this all okay. He explained that it must be in a special metal container (I'm guessing that's what a DOT 31FP compliant container is; but he did not say so). It must be stamped with company name and have two hazardous goods stickers; one yellow Division 5.1 sticker and one green 2.2 Nonflammable Gas sticker (even though its oxygen). His answer was that; although it was flammable; it was not in its packaging theoretically. Okay; so that explains the FOM exception that is poorly written. However; I have no idea if this extremely questionable cargo is properly packaged by the dangerous goods form and was reluctant to accept this answer. Since we were late in the boarding process; I sent FO down to inspect cargo to make sure it was packaged as explained to me by Operations Control. Turns out they handed the paperwork to me very late in boarding but had loaded said cargo much earlier. They had to remove most of the bags for FO to verify cargo was safe and thus we took about a 20-30 min delay. I accepted it as proper and flew on to ZZZ1. Now you would think this is rather rare; but sure enough on this flight the very next day; I get the same dangerous goods form very early in the boarding process. What are the odds? Since I was now educated; I elected to go down and look myself. Since early in boarding process and less bags stacked on top; I was able to quickly located and verify for the flight to ZZZ2. We departed on time and with said cargo. Now; I still question whether we should be doing this as I've read enough accident reports of the type; but respect that company has cleared this cargo for travel if properly prepared. However; our guidance is very thin in our FOM and extremely difficult to find quickly and search function yielded nothing initially and had to search indexes to find reference; which contrary to popular opinion was not in the Preflight Dangerous Goods [section] where you think it might be; but in an entirely different section called GEN Ops. Additionally; there is nothing on the dangerous goods form to note that it was properly containerized for this special exception. Even if it was; I would probably put eyes on it. So why do they load it first and bury it in luggage?
B737 Captain reported difficulty locating hazmat procedures in FOM and confusion over labeling and documentation procedures.