Cargolux Lifts Record Weight

Mission accomplished! It was hard work and a master piece of highly professional cooperation between all parties involved to get the heavy shipment safely on board and unloaded at its final destination Incheon Airport after landing. The rotor took twelve aircraft positions and required the dedicated attention of an entire team of outsize experts, including loadmasters, crane operators, truck drivers and handling agents. After three hours of sweat-inducing loading and securing the piece with straps on the freighter’s main deck, flight CV7965 took off for a nonstop flight of 10:20 hours bound for Seoul.

Commented Cargolux’s Country Manager Switzerland Okan Akpinar after the work was done and the rotor had safely arrived in South Korea: “Carrying heavy, dense cargo in closed packages such as containers or crates requires extraordinary efforts to ensure safe on-aircraft tie-down in forward, aft, left, right and up direction, as we can only secure the outer package and have no influence on what happens to the content when exposed to dynamic accelerations.”

Akpinar, a genuine expert when it comes to heavy and outsized air transports, went on to say: “Together with our customer we were able to assess an adequate form-fit and force-fit securing inside the container, with the lashing applied to specifically designed tie-down lugs at dedicated, reinforced outside locations.”

To secure the safe transportation of heavy or outsized shipments, Cargolux uses a self-develop IT application to plan and calculate the correct loading and tie-down of the items. “This application takes into consideration all strap angles and the resulting aircraft attachment point capabilities to ensure a safe tie-down in full compliance to the applicable Boeing 747 freighter weight and balance manual”, manager Akpinar explained.

Heiner Siegmund