Alaska Air Cargo Shipment Flagged: Painful Lesson You Should Know

[Larry Bartlett]

Guys it's not often that I make a top-shelf mistake but when I do...it's usually a painful reckoning.

I'm headed to Kotzebue next week for a long river adventure, and my pilot informed me that airline flights have been missing bags or delaying them for backhaul due to whatever reason they wanna claim, so as usual I pack and ship ALL my equipment, food, fly fishing, survival gear...everything 4 people need for a 10-day float via AK Air Cargo Goldstreak at least 8 days ahead of time. Been doing this for nearly 30 years BTW.

So due to time on the ground being short when we land in Kotz, I packed and shipped my gear a week early so it reaches Kotz in time for our arrival and decided for Bush convenience to include contraband in my kit, which included embarrassing stuff like bug spray and PAM spray, 3 pints of booze, a small raft repair kit with a small can of glue, and my 10mm. No I didn't declare any of it because they wouldn't let me ship the important hazmat nor would I be able to buy in Kotzebue before heading into the field. So I chanced the shipment and they found the Hazmat then searched everything until all was discovered. They immediately confiscated my entire 400-lbs of cargo and my firearm, poored out the booze (apparently) and have to report the violation according to some HazMat and FAA regulation.

NOW comes the pain and the lesson for y'all:

Mistake #1: Don't risk hazmat or alcohol going to the Bush. While weed and alcohol is legal within the state, federal standards are radical. Local village policy also dictates if and how alcohol can enter the village. In Kotz you have to contact the liquor dispensary and buy an annual permit to buy or transport booze. The permit is cost prohibitive if you don't live there and use it more often than once or twice per season, but it's illegal to transport a small amount of spirits without that local permit. Then you have to declare and show permit at the AK Air agent counter.

Mistake #2: DO NOT walk away from the counter or exit the building BEFORE your cargo is screened by the Cargo agents. I did not wait for the screening and my gear was locked up in buearocracy immediately. There is a rule that AK Air Cargo cannot confiscate your gear until they have legal possession of it, which starts when you leave the building after checking in your gear. It may take 30-min or more to wait for the screening but insist that you want to be present when they screen your bags so that in the event they find anything, you are still legally in possession and they must simply refuse to ship items and return them to you. Problem solved if you are standing there, problem compounded when you are not.

ALL of my hunting and fishing and camping equipment are now in locked storage until two agencies respond to the AK Air agent's report, which they claim will take 2 weeks to SEVERAL months. If that doesn't give ya pause for alarm...I now have to buy or borrow all that gear anew lest I have nothing to hunt and survive with the rest of Alaska's season.

I could go on and on about the woes of this rookie mistake, but if any silver lining exists here it is with what I learned from Mistake #2. If you're traveling to AK this season or shipping cargo ahead of your travels, please take note of my recent errors and prevent the costly delays and aggravating setbacks I'm dealing with now.

LB

 

[wildwilderness]

That’s rough, but thanks for the heads up. I was planning to ship air cargo for a couple hunts coming up and this should save me problem!

 

[weekender7]

Sorry for your woe's, but you took the chance, not just on one item but a list of them. Hope you can assemble new gear and have a much smarter enjoyable productive trip. Back in the 80's when airlines first started regulating what size knives you could carry on, I had to leave one of my favorites behind because I was traveling alone and there was no one to leave it with. Lesson learned the hard way.

 

[kwackkillncrew]

Interesting on the booze. As long as it has been a damp village I have been bringing it with maybe I have just gotten lucky.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[Roguemountainhunter]

Thank you for sharing your lessons learned!

 

[Wrench]

My buddy shipped an undeclared firearm. It didn't end well. He received a ticket from homeland security a month later. He was flying home from PA and it happened there. Hopefully they are more friendly.

Good luck.

 

[Marbles]

That sucks. Thanks for sharing though so others can learn from it. I hope your season works out ok.

 

[2531usmc]

My buddy shipped an undeclared firearm. It didn't end well. He received a ticket from homeland security a month later. He was flying home from PA and it happened there. Hopefully they are more friendly.

Good luck.

Surprised it was just a ticket…..
any idea of the fine that went along with the ticket

 

[ozyclint]

I once flew Air Canada out of Brisbane, Australia. They would not let me board with my Jetboil. No gas canister of course but they wouldn't allow the stove part of the jetboil. "could be traces of gas"
I said, "13 hours in a plane, there will be more gas in the cabin"

The check in lady knew someone from my hometown and offered to send it to my home address because standing in the airport, what could I do with it other than bin it?
I got her details and sent her some $$.

 

[Idaho_Potato]

Yikes. I get it on the pam and the booze, but you have been shipping a firearm under the radar for a while? That seems like it is just inviting the DHS or ATF into your life. Once a gun goes into an airport or aircraft, the chance of tangling with the feds appears. All of the x-ray and scanning technology makes it a little to risky for me. Having my name on lists of any sort with the feds is not something I want to take a chance on. Those guys are sketch.

I just saw a video on twitter the other day of the ATF showing up at a guys door for something he searched on GunBroker. I won't say the name but it was related to a fun switch.

 

[Wrench]

Surprised it was just a ticket…..
any idea of the fine that went along with the ticket

It was just a fine....but it was almost $700.00.

 

[littlerhorner]

Thanks for the heads up. I hope this get sorted out quickly for you

 

[Beendare]

A lesson for us all, thx

 

[william schmaltz]

Ya, that hurts. I had a similar close call in Nome with some hazmat and luckily they caught it while I was in the building. They threatened to “write me up” but it was an honest mistake so they handed it back and off I went.

As of a few years ago, AK airlines started some crap that they would only guarantee one checked bag arrives on your plane to select villages and the rest would be flown as available. They even put a warning about it now while booking and ask you to declare your priority bag at check in. I typically bring a duffle and a rifle case. So I just declare my duffle as priority (they mark it with stickers) and then it’s federal law your firearm must fly with you, so whatever your firearm is in will arrive too. Another work around from back in the Penn Air days is to just put a declared firearm in each bag. I’ve flown to King Salmon last minute on a job with three pistols all in different bags just to make sure everything arrived. Only time it didn’t work was when Barry O was in Dillingham the same day we arrived about 10 years ago. Zero bags arrived with our flight. I had a stern talk with the gate agent and a phone call to Anchorage office informing them I’d be reporting their noncompliance with the feds and my stuff arrived later that day.

Interesting on the booze. As long as it has been a damp village I have been bringing it with maybe I have just gotten lucky.

Must’ve been because OTZ has that silly permit. I ship two action packets of booze out to Bethel each year and declare it on check in and there’s no issues, but never shipped booze to a dry village. Had a long project in Kaktovik one year and the VSPOs would meet every arriving plane and do radom bag checks for booze.

 

[rayporter]

sure sux!

i have had stuff confiscated and had them refuse to take a stove.

i have hid fuel tabs in candy and got it there. the tabs that look like giant aspirin were put in with mints.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

Update: After 3 weeks of not hearing a peep from FAA or AK Airlines, I called in a personal favor with higher management and got my gear back. I'm now in the "provide a statement of your stupidity" phase with FAA.

Good luck,

lb

 

[eddielasvegas]

Good for you lb.

Isn't it amazing how building good relationships pays better dividends than being the smartest person?


Eddie

 

[ttmannan]

Are there fines or jail time for something like that? The firearm is what worries me most. Good luck with it all and thanks for the warning... Hopefully I, and others, will remember these things and not make the same mistakes, especially the leaving part.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

gawd let's hope not, this is Amerika. It wasn't like the hazmat ever left the air cargo building to be checked onboard a plane. The clerks did their job, IMO, found and reported hazmat violations, gear was flagged. The agent from FAA (National) didn't even mention the 10mm Glock...only the ammo in relation to combustibles of spray aerosols like OFF and PAM as well as the ol' raft repair glue.

No fine so far, nor any mention. I provided a statement of honest careless stupidity and pleaded with my 25-year record being spotless as a Known Shipper. If that ain't enough we're losin' ground.

 

[mobilefamily]

Damnit man. That sucks. Most of us that have played the game have done something similar.

I arrived in Alaska from the lower 48 a couple of years ago to find my pre-shipped cargo (UPS I think) tote totally destroyed and haphazardly taped back together. Inside was a SEARCH WARRANT! They suspected a drug shipment. When they didn't find any drugs, they stopped looking and did not notice some hazmat (or were cool enough to not make a deal out of it).