A British safety adviser sees “quite a gap” in Bermuda for training in dangerous goods handling. .

“This is not just for the airlines, but also for the shipping community,” said Paul Horner owner of Dangerous Goods Safety Group and Dangerous Goods Online Training Limited.

The firm based in Milton Keynes, England, has trained local companies such as Longtail Aviation and BermudAir.

Mr Horner and his wife, Lisa, who runs the business with him, are now looking to expand their Bermuda base in all industry sectors. Their hope is to come to the island at least twice a year.

“Dangerous goods safety training must be updated regularly,” Mr Horner explained.

When the Horners were here in July they had discussions with the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority.

One of Mr Horner’s concerns is the transportation of lithium batteries. A fire triggered by a lithium battery – used to power electric vehicles, can be extremely difficult to extinguish, so can pose a particular risk to aircraft.

“This is not so much an issue for Bermuda because most of your lithium batteries are brought in by ship,” he said.

“However, I am concerned that some are being brought in by third-party mail carriers.”

He said that in the past 15 years he had seen a growing threat to household consumers from counterfeit and poor-quality lithium batteries for sale on some e-commerce platforms.

“It is so difficult for consumers to distinguish between good and bad products,” he said.

“There are many rogue sellers intentionally placing non-compliant articles on the market with a complete disregard of transport regulations and consumer safety.”

Mr Horner said tackling the problem required multi-agency, cross-border action.

“This is something that the BCAA and other competent authorities are working collaboratively to address,” he said.

In certain circumstances, lithium batteries, used to power electric vehicles can be extremely flammable and difficult to extinguish once a fire starts.

He pointed to the case of Scott Peden, a UK man who last year, replaced a stolen e-scooter battery with one purchased on the internet. The battery malfunctioned while charging and burnt his house down. His wife and two young children were killed in the fire. Mr Peden later told the press the flames from the battery reached two storeys high.

“Lithium batteries are particularly challenging because they have so much stored energy within them,” Mr Horner said.

“If they go into thermal runaway, they have a lot of heat energy. The electrolyte used is flammable. When liquid heats, it expands and then produces a toxic, flammable gas. That produces static electricity, which will then lead to the ignition of the flammable gasses.”

The firm started its association with Bermuda soon after it set up five years ago.

“We were contacted by a company writing manuals for Longtail Aviation, who were moving into cargo operations,” Mr Horner said.

“After writing the dangerous goods handling manual for them, my wife Lisa and I came to Bermuda to conduct a safety risk assessment.”

From there, he was appointed their dangerous goods officer.

“We came several times during their contract,” Mr Horner said. “Unfortunately, that did not quite work out.”

He fell into the dangerous goods handling arena while working for the British Army for nine years.

“I was handling ammunition and moving equipment,” he said. “Then I became a dangerous goods manager for DHL UK, based in the East Midlands.”

Working for DHL he often dealt with restricted commodities and the transportation of special cargoes such as sharks or gorillas.

“There are some big challenges to moving a gorilla,” he said with a laugh.

“The one I dealt with was a mother with a suckling baby. They were being sent by the Aspinall Foundation in the UK to be rewilded in Uganda. That was pretty cool.”

He also handled dangerous goods for firms such as Formula One.

Now, a big part of their client base is in the automotive sector, such as e-scooter rental companies.