The Unusual Things Airlines Transport Besides Passengers

Aviation has facilitated the transport of various commodities aside from passengers and the usual cargo. When the time comes to transport some large loads, aviation is there to help. Airlines often transport unusual items for various reasons.

Live Cargo

Animals and plants are examples of live cargo transported by aircraft today. Typically, moving a shipment of animals from one side of the world to the other is easiest achieved through air cargo. 

Take the case of the three giant pandas shipped from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., back to China. FedEx Express had the honor of transporting these pandas home, flying a specially-painted Boeing 777F from Washington Dulles (IAD) to Chengdu (CTU) with a stopover in Anchorage (ANC). The animals were transported in special crates for the lengthy voyage. Two hundred fifty pounds (113 kilograms) of food was loaded onboard to sustain the pandas during the journey. 

Another case was the transport of manatees. Large open-air padded containers were designed to transport manatees from facilities in Florida to Manatee Springs, a rehabilitation center for injured or orphaned manatees in the Cincinnati Zoo. During the trip, veterinarians were onboard the flight to monitor the manatees' health.

Louisville, Kentucky, hosts the annual Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs. Getting so many horses to Louisville does not necessarily entail them all being transported via road. One unusual case was "Air Horse One," a Boeing 727 operated by Tex Sutton Equine Air Transportation in contract with Kalitta Air. This aircraft, registered N725CK, was painted in a special livery to showcase its unique responsibility. The plane has since retired, but many photos and videos can be found online.

Aviation is also responsible for transporting some otherwise unwelcome guests onboard an aircraft. Venomous snakes, for example, are shipped daily from airports worldwide. However, these animals are contained within proper containers that are further packed into wooden boxes secured to the floor. This is to prevent future occurrences of "snakes on a plane."

Historical Artifacts

Parts of the Titanic have also been transported via air. We're not just talking about a couple of fragments here and there. A portion of the salvaged hull and 180,000 pounds (81,647 kilograms) of other Titanic relics have been carefully packed and transported from Milan, Italy, to Atlanta, Georgia. These artifacts were part of a "Titanic: The Artifacts Exhibition" exhibition. Since this instance, other portions of the ill-fated ocean liner have been transported to museums worldwide.

The famous Terra Cotta Army was discovered buried under farmland in 1974. More than 8,000 life-size terracotta statues of soldiers, chariots, horses, and other artifacts were found. Transporting even a couple of these pieces took a lot of work. After two years of planning, warrior statues began traveling worldwide to various exhibitions.

Each sculpture was packed in special vibration-dampening shipping containers to safely transport these age-old pieces and transport them in controlled temperature cargo areas. Once, an entire LEGO statue of Yoda from Star Wars was transported via air. It was flown across the United States to a specific LEGO store in Tennessee. However, this seems to be a regular occurrence as various LEGO sculptures are transported by air.