WYOMING, Minn. (WCCO) — If you’ve ever shipped anything with guaranteed overnight air delivery, you know it can get a bit spendy. So one can only imagine what it would cost to send three massive airport fire rescue trucks half-way around the world.

That’s just what the employees of a Wyoming fire truck manufacturing company did. They were under the gun to ship the three rescue rigs to a city in northern Nigeria.

Some of the most sophisticated fire trucks in the world are built at the Rosenbauer facility a few miles north of Forest Lake.

That includes the six-wheel drive, fully enclosed Panther model: the trucks that respond to crashes and fire emergencies at airports.

“We’re very proud that countries across the world are coming to the small town of Wyoming, Minnesota and buying a truck that’s hand built by our craftsmen,” said Rosenbauer America President Kevin Kirvida.

On the parking lot outside the plane it was time to shine the rigs up and get them ready to ship out. Three identical panthers were there, numbered one, two and three, and freshly painted for service at the new Dutse International Airport in Nigeria.

They’d normally send the heavy trucks aboard a ship, across the ocean. But this particular order can’t wait that long and must be delivered by Saturday.

So the order was rushed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for overnight air express.

Mid-afternoon on Thursday, the only cargo plane up to the task descended from the sky.

The trucks will be shipped next day air on a Russian-built Antonov 124 cargo plane, one of the largest in the world.

The plane and crew flew here empty from France for the quick turnaround delivery.

The choice of shipper is purely out of necessity. That’s because there is not an American carrier with a cargo plane that can carry the massive volume or weight. Parked end to end, the three trucks will fill the entire inside and weigh more than 120,000 pounds without water or fuel.

With both the U.S. Customs and paperwork in order, the trucks enter the aluminum beast of a plane through its opened nose. The front of the plane was lowered with hydraulics and down came a large loading ramp.

Then, one-by-one, the yellow fire trucks crawled aboard for the long flight abroad.

“We need these trucks at a new airport that just opened with new runways, towers and new terminal buildings. But at this point it has no fire trucks,” said Larry Walston, the fleet manager for Maxair.

And the airport won’t be able to open for commercial flights until the trucks arrive and fire crews are in place. So without delay, the pride of Wyoming workers each disappeared into the airborne aluminum cavern.

The plane is scheduled to depart the Twin Cities on Friday afternoon.

Each truck is valued at more than $600,000, for the basic model.

The cost to overnight the trucks to Nigeria will be nearly $1 million.


http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/14/massive-minn-made-fire-trucks-flying-overnight-to-africa/

Nigeria

Waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money! The trucks they flew in with emergency...will not have water during emergency.

Imagine what $20billion will do

sigmundfreud: Waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money! The trucks they flew in with emergency...will not have water during emergency.

very true but i pray this doesnt happen

What a waste!!!

The money is not coming from their pocket so dishing it out any how they want is not their problem.

I respect Sule Lamido for his high taste for quality/ standard products and service delivery but why spend huge amount for emergency shipping?

prophetone: Sule Lamido is working. I still find it absurd to spend $1m to transport something that costs $1.8m when it could have been shipped at a fraction of the cost.

The bottom line however, is that Jigawa State has 3 Brand New, World Class, State-of-the-Art Fire Trucks for a Brand New Ultra Modern Airport.

APC is working!

Na so? When he stole, he remains a PDP governor but when he does something good he is an APC governor. Let us clap and laugh at these APC hypocrites,

sigmundfreud: Waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money! The trucks they flew in with emergency...will not have water during emergency.

Just what I was about to say

People open your eyes. Lamido is under probe for mismanagement of public funds. He had to hurriedly import this to present as part of what the embezzled money was used for.

sigmundfreud: Waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money! The trucks they flew in with emergency...will not have water during emergency.

pure unbearable fact.

Is Dutse burning to warrant this emergency delivery?

These people like calling every desolate landing strip an international airport.


Who flies to Dutse
Who even drives to Dutse

NAME: chimax
COUNTRY: Nigeria
DATE OF BIRTH: 15th sept.199..
GENDER: Male
HOBBIES:
-Catching lizards, snakes and taking
hyenas for
walk;
-Catching bullets with bare hands.
MY RECORD:
-Killed superman;
-Skinned a crocodile alive;
-Held my breath under water for
2months.
GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT:
-The very first man to walk on the sun;
-Fluent in 10,565 languages.
SILLY THINGS DONE:
-Drank the red sea dry;
-Sky diving from outer space.
EMBARRASSING MOMENT:
-Couldn't kill 1,000 lions with a single
punch, only killed 999
instantly, then tamed the last one.
SOMETHING ABOUT ME:
I really dont like to brag
PS - That's for those always asking via
Pm 'can I know you
more'... now you know...

You took your time to build a beautiful world class airport. Why the sudden rush for delivery of fire trucks which could have been shipped?
BTW I luv the airport!

Sunnybobo3: People open your eyes. Lamido is under probe for mismanagement of public funds. He had to hurriedly import this to present as part of what the embezzled money was used for.

Exactly my thoughts.

sigmundfreud: Waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money! The trucks they flew in with emergency...will not have water during emergency.

Comprehension, comprehension, comprehension:pls where did you get that idea from?

If I may guess, you read where the article mentioned the dead weight of the trucks, without water and fuel, during their transportation to Jigawa and quickly concluded it meant they would not have water (to work with when put to service) during emergencies - and you even had supporters for that blind ignorant comment; choi! Bigotry is a bastard, SMH

Not surprised to see only private jets parked at the airports.
These northern leaders are the most heartless set of people on the planet.
this is a largely unviable poor and uneducated state with million of almajiris.
Selfishness of the highest order.

MeAboki:

Comprehension, comprehension, comprehension:pls where did you get that idea from?

If I may guess, you read where the article mentioned the dead weight of the trucks, without water and fuel, during their transportation to Jigawa and quickly concluded it meant they would not have water (to work with when put to service) during emergencies - and you even had supporters for that blind ignorant comment bigotry; choi! Bigotry is a bastard, SMH

It is better to be quiet and look like a f l than to open one's mouth and erase the doubt.
People like you are not allowed to "guess" because they can't do it intelligently.

prophetone so sule lamido is apc?lord have mercy...also do not dare change what you have already written.

asha80: prophetone so sule lamido is apc?lord have mercy...also do not dare change what you have already written.

Why would I change it? I take responsibility for my mistake.

sigmundfreud:
It is better to be quiet and look like a f l than to open one's mouth and erase the doubt.
People like you are not allowed to "guess" because they can't do it intelligently.

Yes, agreed and quite on par with your username; though it is also worthy to occasionally jolt them back to reality.
There is a saying that a lie repeated long enough would eventually be assumed to be true - know what I mean.

How viable is dutse's airport How many people lives in dutse?, how many international business /company can one find in dutse? how reach is dutse's inhabitants that warrants building an airport & spending a whooping million dollars to import a machine that would have cost a fraction if shipped?

What are the chances of return of investment with such extravagant spending?
....Misplaced priority. A state with one of the highest rate of poverty in Nigeria is building airport for amagiri.....mitcheeuu

^^^^My friend how did you arrive at that conclusion when all you did was pose speculative questions without providing facts to buttress your point?
Probably when airlines begin to apply for licences to ply the Dutse route you may also want to support the idea of diverting them to Enugu airport as your former aviation minister, Stella Oduoh, tried to do with Emirates Air and Ethiopia Air from the Kano route.