
FAA Slaps Amazon with $350k Penalty for Shipping Violation - walterclifford
http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-slaps-amazon-with-350-000-penalty-for-shipping-violation-1465847290
======
Animats
_" The liquid leaked from a one-gallon container of “Amazing Liquid Fire,” a
drain cleaner, during a flight from Louisville, Ky. to Boulder, Colo. ... The
FAA alleged that the shipment was not properly packaged, was not accompanied
by a proper declaration stating the hazardous nature of its contents."_ 9
employees injured.

"Amazing Liquid Fire" is concentrated sulfuric acid. Amazon review: "It eats
through everything except plastic and porcelain. When you use this you have to
be careful when you pour it down the drain it ate through the metal ring
around the drain hole..... Unfortunately it did not unclog my drains, guess I
have to call a plumber."

MSDS info: Very hazardous in case of skin contact (corrosive, irritant,
permeator), of eye contact (irritant, corrosive), of ingestion, of inhalation.
Liquid or spray mist may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous
membranes of eyes, mouth and respiratory tract. Skin contact may produce
burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation of
respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath.
Severe over-exposure can result in death. Inflammation of the eye is
characterized by redness, watering, and itching....

Also, sulfuric acid in contact with a long list of other chemicals is
explosive.

"Amazing Liquid Fire" ships in a 1 gallon plastic jug. You can't even ship
that via UPS Ground. Above 500ml, you have to use hazardous material freight.

Come on, Amazon, you have databases. You should know which products are
hazardous. If the vendor can't give you an MSDS for it, maybe you shouldn't be
shipping it.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Looking at the Amazon listings it looks like it is sold by an Amazon vendor.
That suggests an interesting weakness where Amazon doesn't enforce shipping
rules on its third party sellers. Also per the comments the "product" is $10
at the hardware store and this person is selling it for $40 at Amazon so that
is an interesting business.

And like you I was _amazed_ that it was sold with lye. Kind of makes me wonder
if this stuff was riding in the cargo hold of some jet I was flying across
country. It could easily cause serious problems.

~~~
joering2
> this person is selling it for $40 at Amazon so that is an interesting
> business.

Shipping usually heavy liquids across US with special hazardous markings and
proper handle requires extra payments. If that's interesting business to you
then okay...

> It could easily cause serious problems.

It couldn't because FAA strictly forbids mixing of cargo with the one attached
to a flying PAX.

~~~
cwyers
> Shipping usually heavy liquids across US with special hazardous markings and
> proper handle requires extra payments.

Isn't the whole point of this that they didn't do that?

~~~
protomyth
I think joering2 is answering the business question, not the specifics of this
case.

------
serge2k
So next time you want to whine about FAA safety regs, remember they ended up
written because of things like this.

~~~
ancap
It could be handled as a civil suit. The nine employees would likely get a lot
more than $350k.

~~~
smt88
And taxpayers would end up spending as much (or more) due to the costs of the
litigation.

I don't want to live in a country where unsafely shipping materials in a
shared plane is legal and handled by civil suits. Putting others in extreme
danger should always be illegal when it's as black-and-white as this.

~~~
ancap
>I don't want to live in a country where unsafely shipping materials in a
shared plane is legal and handled by civil suits. Putting others in extreme
danger should always be illegal when it's as black-and-white as this.

We could live in a country where it's illegal to possess materials which may
be unsafely transported. We can never be too safe, you know.

~~~
smt88
> _We could live in a country where it 's illegal to possess materials which
> may be unsafely transported_

You seem to be suggesting that regulating the transport of dangerous materials
is a slippery slope.

That's like arguing that speed limits are a slippery slope toward a ban on
driving. Maybe that makes sense in some absolutist libertarian nightmare, but
in the real world we have to weigh the real danger of regulation against the
real danger of deregulation.

In this case, it's not much trouble to package sulfuric acid in a safe
container. It is, however, a lot of trouble to be injured or killed by
sulfuric acid.

I honestly can't believe that there's anyone arguing how the pros/cons shake
out in that specific scenario.

~~~
ancap
You're appealing to a need for safety, but where you draw the line is
arbitrary. I am only demonstrating that, following the same logic you are
using, I draw the line somewhere else which results in a completely different,
though absurd, outcome. What is the principle which makes where you drew the
line correct and where I drew the line incorrect?

You also suggest that because transporting these materials in an unsafe manner
is illegal and punishable by a fine, that that is somehow a bigger deterrent
to businesses than the threat of a lawsuit. How so, and why is the illegality
of it supposed to be a bigger deterrent than a lawsuit?

~~~
lmm
> You're appealing to a need for safety, but where you draw the line is
> arbitrary. I am only demonstrating that, following the same logic you are
> using, I draw the line somewhere else which results in a completely
> different, though absurd, outcome. What is the principle which makes where
> you drew the line correct and where I drew the line incorrect?

Maybe there is no first-principles answer here (certainly either of the
obvious principles-based approaches gives absurd results). Maybe we do just
have to weigh up the costs and benefits of individual cases as best as we can.

> You also suggest that because transporting these materials in an unsafe
> manner is illegal and punishable by a fine, that that is somehow a bigger
> deterrent to businesses than the threat of a lawsuit. How so, and why is the
> illegality of it supposed to be a bigger deterrent than a lawsuit?

Leaving it up to lawsuits to enforce public safety doesn't square very well
with the limited-liability corporation. Imagine ten companies engaging in
dangerous shipping practices, and one of them actually having an incident. If
we only fine the one that had the incident, we bankrupt it and don't recover
the full public-health cost.

~~~
ancap
>Leaving it up to lawsuits to enforce public safety doesn't square very well
with the limited-liability corporation. Imagine ten companies engaging in
dangerous shipping practices, and one of them actually having an incident. If
we only fine the one that had the incident, we bankrupt it and don't recover
the full public-health cost.

It's not just lawsuits which would enforce these type of public safety issues
sans-FAA (or other federal organization). The private companies which are
doing the shipping, in this case UPS, would have their own terms of services
and contracts which would prohibit unsafe transportation of hazardous
chemicals.

------
a13n
Ooh $350k, about what it costs them to hire one software engineer for a year

~~~
chrischen
4 engineers at Amazon's pay rate.

~~~
djsumdog
4? In Seattle? No way, unless they're at a satellite office. Senior devs go
for $130 ~ $180 in Washington (plus all the taxes and benefits; lower if you
contract).

For $350k they'd get 2, maybe 3 tops. If you're taking low level interns, yea,
they could probably get 6 ~ 8.

~~~
praccu
Uh, at Amazon, junior devs go for around $120 if they don't negotiate well.
Interns, last I checked, were close to $80.

If you fold in the TCO (benefits, computer / chair / licenses, etc.) for a
senior engineer, the $350 isn't too far off.

~~~
chrischen
I know full time devs there who were getting under $100k, granted this was 2-3
years ago.

~~~
serge2k
I was at 94 base when I left. Started at 90 2 years before that.

Of course if you include stock it was 120ish.

~~~
praccu
Of course you include stock? That's part of the cost. I know four people that
just started fresh out of no-name schools for $120 including stock.

~~~
jacalata
Which one is going to stay long enough collect his stock at vesting?

------
cbhl
I imagine we'll see less of this going forward, as Amazon moves towards local
warehouses and Amazon Prime Now one-hour delivery, in lieu of shipping
everything by air using UPS/FedEx.

~~~
protomyth
Well, I would suppose a car accident with this stuff improperly packed would
be 'eventful'.

------
scurvy
So they shipped something ORM-D by air? Throw the book at them.

------
jrockway
Incidentally, I've seen Amazon err the other way on lithium batteries. I have
ordered things like LiFePO4 cells or devices with lithium ion batteries inside
and they come with a sticker that says "PRIMARY LITHIUM BATTERY, NOT FOR
TRANSPORT ON PASSENGER AIRCRAFT" which apparently doesn't apply to lithium ion
batteries. Better safe than sorry, though, I suppose. (I have also ordered
primary lithium batteries... and those also get the sticker correctly.)

UPS has an incredibly detailed document here about the regulations:
[https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/us_lithium_battery_regulat...](https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/us_lithium_battery_regulations.pdf)

~~~
mmagin
I've had them ship a flashlight that came with an alkaline battery labeled as
if it had a lithium battery.

I've also found that they wouldn't ship the 8 oz version of a popular
homebrewing sanitizer (Star San -- it's phosphoric acid and a strong
detergent) to my address, but they shipped the 32 oz version just fine.

As a customer, the annoying thing is that they don't make it easy to request a
review of this bogus database info.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, that happens randomly. I think the 32 oz version of Star San is from a
different vendor that is probably not shipping it properly. Or vice versa. (I
too have 32 oz of Star San ;)

------
nommm-nommm
Amazon is known by third party FBA sellers for shipping out poorly packaged
items. They then ding your seller account when your stuff arrives broke.

This doesn't surprise me in the least.

From the article:

“Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations,” the
agency said in a news release. From February 2013 to September 2015, Amazon
was found to have violated such regulations 24 times, the FAA said, adding
that the agency would continue to investigate the company’s compliance with
air safety regulations.

------
Dr_tldr
Third party vendors doing sketchy stuff with shipping does not profit Amazon
enough for this to be part of their overall business plan. 350k is definitely
only a warning shot, but in this case, the interests of the FAA, Amazon, and
public safety are all in fairly close alignment.

~~~
Apofis
How the fuck is Amazon on the hook for the shipping method a 3rd party vendor
used?

~~~
colechristensen
I imagine this was a 'fulfilled by Amazon' order. That is, a 3rd party vendor
shipped the product to Amazon which sold and shipped it.

As to the parent's comment, Amazon sees a huge part of it's business moving to
this area, it's not just noise. Amazon wants to be a logistics company, not a
store.

------
tn13
So is Amazon happy that one of the most important partners of their business
suffered ? Cant we trust UPS and Amazon more than FAA in this case?

~~~
Johnny555
Based on the decline of Amazon UPS deliveries over the past couple years, UPS
is becoming less and less important to them. For a while, Ontrac was doing
most of my Amazon deliveries, but more recently, Amazon's own delivery service
has been delivering most of my orders (not sure if they are _really_ Amazon
drivers or if they are contractors). UPS is still doing some deliveries (seems
to be only products that aren't available in nearby warehouses), but not
nearly as many as they used to. When Amazon first started using Ontrac,
Ontrac's delivery service was so horrible that I think Amazon did it only so
they could squeeze more money from UPS and Fedex, though Ontrac has improved a
lot since then.

Recently Amazon has starting using the USPS to deliver more packages (or at
least the last-mile delivery), and that service has been disappointing, I can
usually count on a USPS package being delivered at least a day late, and more
than once, it hasn't shown up at all, despite being marked as "delivered at
front door".

In any case, while I would think that any unhappiness between UPS and Amazon
would be resolved through their contracts, I doubt that UPS wants to rock the
boat with Amazon, because even a small piece of the Amazon delivery pie is a
_lot_ of deliveries. So in this case, where workers health and safety is in
question, it's good that the government stepped in to prevent UPS's desire to
keep a customer happy from getting in the way of their worker's welfare.

~~~
click170
This is interesting because I've had similar problems with Amazon orders that
come thru Canada post. One incident I was already in the middle of the dispute
process when they finally delivered it. A week after the Canada post website
showed Delivered.

I originally blammed Canada post but perhaps this is an AWS shipping issue
after all.

~~~
Johnny555
Oh, I'm sure my problems are related to the USPS and not Amazon -- one of the
lost packages turned up a week later from a neighbor to whom it was
misdelivered.

Amazon has always been quick to ship out replacements when I reported the
missing packages (even when the USPS said they were "delivered"), and even for
the one that was re-delivered by my neighbor, when I reported to amazon that I
received it, they said I could keep the $10 item, no need to return it.

------
swehner
Should be $350,000,000, no doubt.

