Commercial Fixed Wing
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Hazardous Material Violation
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
30 minutes after flight left gate the crew sent ACARS message stating there was a restricted article (R/A) in aft bin. The crew trashed the Notice to Captain (NOTOC) when entering flight deck thinking it was for previous flight. Dispatch Procedures Manual (DPM) has formatted [automated messaging] to ACARS flight [crew] once cargo agent fills in the info. Cargo agent insists aircraft must return to gate. Chief Dispatcher shows me a page out of some cargo manual that states the aircraft must return to gate and obtain NOTOC. Flight Manual (FM) states an R/A on the closeout requires a NOTOC prior to takeoff. Nowhere in the FM does it state the use of the [automated messaging] mentioned in the DPM. To make it more confusing it was learned that the R/A was lithium battery. FM states [company] supplies an auto-NOTOC for lithium batteries cargo even when normally not required. The flight took off before anything was accomplished. Dispatcher never [received] the info from the cargo agent. Make auto-NOTOC available to both [the] dispatcher and pilot iPad. Also state in FM that [dispatchers] may ACARS information per DPM [automated messaging]. Also whatever cargo manual states that the flight must return to gate when no NOTOC is onboard should be removed.
Dispatch reported flight departed with missing HAZMAT documents which indicated procedural inconsistencies exist among company department manuals.