opinion: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Heinz WABNIK and Michael Sampayo, Appellees.
  No. 763, Docket 35801.
  United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
  Argued April 29, 1971.
  Decided June 8, 1971.
  Before HAYS and FEINBERG, Circuit Judges, and BLUMENFELD, District Judge.
  David G. Trager, Asst. U. S. Atty. (Edward R. Neaher, U. S. Atty., E. D. N. Y., Thomas R. Pattison, Asst. U. S. Atty., on the brief), for appellant.
  Maurice Brill, New York City, for ap-pellee Wabnik.
  Allan Kritz, New York City (Lifshutz & Kahn, New York City, on the brief), for appellee Sampayo.
  Of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, sitting by designation.
  HAYS, Circuit Judge:
  This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York suppressing evidence obtained as a result of a search of the defendant Wabnik’s automobile. The United States appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731 (1964). We reverse the order below, since we find that the detectives who conducted the search of the automobile had probable cause to believe that a crime was being committed.
  The relevant events took place on the evening of November 25, 1969. Officers Harz and Bichko, detectives of the New York Port Authority Police Department, were seated in an automobile in the BOAC parking lot at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Their assignment was to follow an employee of BOAC expected to appear shortly. Ap-pellees drove into the BOAC parking lot in a black Comet at approximately 7:10 p. m. and parked about 20 feet away from the detectives. The latter noted that both men in the Comet were wearing white coveralls. Within a few minutes, a white Ford station wagon bearing Pan American insignia entered the lot and stopped directly behind the Comet. The appellees immediately got out of the Comet and, without a word, opened the right rear door of the station wagon, removed two cartons, and hurriedly placed them in the trunk of the Comet. The driver of the Pan American station wagon remained behind the wheel during the entire operation. Neither he nor appellees said anything at all.
  After having observed these activities, the two detectives got out of their vehicle and headed toward the Comet. While they were approaching the Pan American station wagon backed out and drove away. The Comet had started to back up when it was stopped by Detective Harz. He showed his badge and asked the driver Wabnik to produce his license and registration. After inspecting these, Harz told Wabnik to open the trunk, and Wabnik complied. When the detectives found two cartons with Pan American airway bills attached, they placed the appellees under arrest.
  In addition to the facts recited above, the court is entitled to consider other facts known to the detectives (Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 159-160, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925)) in deciding whether “the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that [stolen goods were] being transported in the automobile which they stopped and searched.” Id. at 162. Both the detectives here were long experienced. Officer Harz had been a member of the New York Port Authority Department for over 16 years and had been on duty at J.F.K. airport for about 22 months. Officer Bichko had been with the Authority for 18 years and had been assigned to the airport for about 8 years. Both officers testified that they knew that Pan American cargo would not normally be handled or transferred except at Pan American’s own facilities and indeed that they had never observed such a transfer as that involving appel-lees during the entire time they had been employed at the airport. That there was a more than adequate basis for the knowledge of the officers at the time of the seizure was confirmed by an official of Pan American who testified: that Pan American cargo is delivered to consignees only at the Pan American cargo building which has its own lot; that Pan American does not deliver; that Pan American station wagons are not used to move cargo; that Pan American employees may not use their own automobiles to transport Pan American cargo; and that if Pan American employees receive cargo personally, they are required to follow the same procedures as other consignees. He further pointed out that the BOAC parking lot is neither on nor near the direct route employed by Pan American cargo vehicles and stated that the BOAC parking lot is never used for authorized transfers of Pan American cargoes. In short, the events observed appeared to the detectives who were familiar with the procedures of cargo transfer at the airport to be highly unusual. Moreover, the detectives were aware of the well-known fact that many thefts of cargo had occurred at the airport.
  When this background information is considered in conjunction with the facts observed, viz., the obviously prearranged manner of transferring the cartons hurriedly without conversation, the Pan American station wagon in the BOAC lot, the lack of documents, and the nighttime setting, it would be difficult to imagine an innocent explanation for the activity. The detectives were fully justified in believing that a crime was being committed before their eyes. Cf. Bell v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 383, 254 F.2d 82, cert. denied, 358 U.S. 885, 79 S.Ct. 126, 3 L.Ed.2d 113 (1958).
  In determining whether there was probable cause for the action taken by the detectives, we are required to apply a common sense rather than a hyper-technical standard. United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108-109, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949). The test is whether ordinary, reasonable men, possessed of the experience and knowledge of these detectives would conclude that the transaction described above was more likely than not a criminal transaction. See Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 313, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). Since the detectives had probable cause to believe that a crime was being committed, they were not required to obtain a search warrant or to arrest the defendants before searching the automobile in which the stolen cargo was found. Carroll v. United States, supra; see Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 87 S.Ct. 788, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967).
  Reversed.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
  If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
  Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.