Another Specialist Project Cargo for Russian Air Freight Carrier

UK – AFGHANISTAN – Volga-Dnepr Airlines once again operated one of its IL-76TD-90VD cargo carrying aircraft to transport two Amdec Carmichael mobile fire fighting trucks from the UK to Afghanistan on behalf of freight forwarding company Transact International. The 30 tonnes consignment was carried from East Midlands Airport to Afghanistan’s second largest city located in the south of the country. After expanding its fleet at the beginning of the year, the freighters had previously been used to deliver supplies ahead of the APEC 2012 summit.

Transact specialises in the shipping of project cargoes particularly in the field of military and humanitarian aid shipments. Georgy Sokolov, Regional Sales Manager, Volga-Dnepr UK, said that a payload such as the fire tenders presented particular problems and required a detailed engineering study of the dimensions involved to ensure the extremely precise loading necessary to fit the trucks into the cargo hold of the IL-76TD-90VD.

Following an advance inspection of the two fire engines performed by Evgeny Venikov, Senior Load Planning Engineer of Volga-Dnepr to confirm the vehicles could be carried by the 50-tonne capacity cargo aircraft and to ensure optimum load plan preparation a decision was taken to remove certain parts of the fire trucks and place them between the vehicles to give the clearances required onboard the aircraft. The payload was successfully placed into the cargo hold and arrived safely and on-time at its destination in Kandahar.

Photo: One of the fire trucks being loaded under its own power.