BA Aircraft grounded - Radioactive Scare

[ILS27LEFT]

All BA flights affected.

Flight information for aircraft undergoing forensic tests

Summary
The following British Airways flights are involved.

London Heathrow to Moscow/Moscow to London Heathrow
October 25, BA874 and BA875
October 26, BA872 and BA873
October 28, BA872 and BA873
October 31, BA874 and BA875
November 1, BA874 and BA875
November 3, BA874 and BA875
November 5, BA872 and BA873
November 6, BA874 and BA875
November 7, BA874 and BA875
November 7, BA872 and BA873
November 8, BA874 and BA875
November 9, BA872 and BA873
November 9, BA874 and BA875
November 13, BA874 and BA875
November 14, BA872 and BA873
November 15, BA874 and BA875
November 16, BA872 and BA873
November 17, BA874 and BA875
November 18, BA874 and BA875
November 20, BA872 and BA873
November 22, BA872 and BA873
November 24, BA874 and BA875
November 25, BA872 and BA873
November 27, BA872 and BA873
November 28, BA872 and BA873


London Heathrow to Moscow
October 25, BA874
November 29, BA872

Moscow to London Heathrow
October 31, BA873

London Heathrow to Barcelona/Barcelona to London Heathrow
November 4, BA478 and BA479
November 14, BA478 and BA479
November 15, BA478 and BA479
November 16, BA478 and BA479
November 17, BA478 and BA479
November 19, BA478 and BA479
November 20, BA478 and BA479
November 21, BA478 and BA479
November 22, BA478 and BA479
November 23, BA478 and BA479
November 24, BA478 and BA479
November 26, BA478 and BA479

London Heathrow to Dusseldorf/Dusseldorf to London Heathrow
October 30, BA936 and BA937
November 6, BA936 and BA937
November 8, BA936 and BA937
November 9, BA936 and BA937
November 11, BA936 and BA937
November 13, BA936 and BA937
November 18, BA936 and BA937
November 19, BA936 and BA937
November 24, BA936 and BA937
November 25, BA936 and BA937
November 27, BA936 and BA937

London Heathrow to Athens/Athens to London Heathrow
October 30, BA632 and BA633
November 4, BA632 and BA633
November 6, BA632 and BA633
November 8, BA632 and BA633
November 11, BA632 and BA633
November 19, BA632 and BA633
November 23, BA632 and BA633
November 24, BA632 and BA633
November 25, BA632 and BA633
November 27, BA632 and BA633
November 28, BA632 and BA633

London Heathrow to Athens
October 31, BA634
November 5, BA634
November 6, BA632
November 7, BA634
November 9, BA634
November 10, BA632
November 14, BA634
November 20, BA634
November 21, BA632
November 22, BA634
November 23, BA634
November 25, BA632
November 27, BA634
November 28, BA634
November 29, BA631


Athens to London Heathrow
November 1, BA631
November 6, BA631
November 8, BA631
November 10, BA631
November 10, BA633
November 15, BA631
November 21, BA631
November 21, BA633
November 23, BA631
November 24, BA631
November 25, BA633
November 28, BA631

London Heathrow to Larnaca/Larnaca to London Heathrow
October 29, BA662 and BA663
November 11, BA662 and BA663
November 12, BA662 and BA663
November 13, BA662 and BA663
November 18, BA662 and BA663
November 25, BA662 and BA663
November 26, BA662 and BA663

London Heathrow to Stockholm/Stockholm to London Heathrow
November 14, BA780 and BA781
November 15, BA780 and BA781
November 16, BA780 and BA781
November 17, BA780 and BA781
November 19, BA780 and BA781
November 20, BA780 and BA781
November 21, BA780 and BA781
November 22, BA780 and BA781
November 23, BA780 and BA781
November 24, BA780 and BA781
November 26, BA780 and BA781

London Heathrow to Stockholm
November 3, BA786
November 19, BA780

Stockholm to London Heathrow
November 4, BA773
November 19, BA781

London Heathrow to Warsaw (diverted to Vienna)
November 28, BA846 and BA847

London Heathrow to Frankfurt
October 26, BA916
November 2, BA916
November 16, BA916
November 17, BA916
November 19, BA916
November 20, BA916
November 21, BA916
November 22, BA916

Frankfurt to London Heathrow
October 27, BA901
November 3, BA901
November 17, BA901
November 18, BA901
November 20, BA901
November 21, BA901
November 22, BA901
November 23, BA901

London Heathrow to Istanbul/Istanbul to London Heathrow
October 27, BA676 and BA677
November 2, BA676 and BA677
November 3, BA676 and BA677
November 17, BA676 and BA677
November 18, BA676 and BA677
November 19, BA676 and BA677
November 20, BA676 and BA677
November 21, BA676 and BA677
November 22, BA676 and BA677
November 23, BA676 and BA677

London Heathrow to Madrid/Madrid to London Heathrow
November 26, BA460 and 461

[derekl]

Get your Polonium 210 here, $69 a shot.

http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm

[ILS27LEFT]

I am now slightly (!) worried.

The substance found on the BA 767s has not been officially confirmed yet.
It is likely to be the Polonium 210.

Scientists and experts are reiterating that this substance is not harmful unless ingested.
Polonium-210 is only harmful if taken into the body.

Only if taken into the body? ...I am now very worried then:
this is a very crucial question as inhalation would have definitely happened in a contaminated cabin.
If Polonium-210 is present in the environment, it would need to enter people's bodies to give them a radiation dose, again through ingestion, inhalation or through wound entry. Inhalation is the scary one (in this BA case) because I think this would happen in any case in a contaminated aircraft Cabin. Am I wrong? I am not a radiation expert so I hope to be wrong.

Now I would really appreciate if the media would be more careful when reporting this type of news as hundreds of BA staff and thousands of passengers are now directly involved.

Is this just a forensic procedure (BA 767 planes grounded!) or the quantities of Polonium found on the BA aircrafts are sufficient to justify this "health warning" and then the MHZ should test all passengers and Crew involved as inhalation would have necessarily happened?

I would like an answer from the Authorities as I am directly involved.


I think they should clarify the quantities found (apparently it takes around 50 days for the Polonium to disappear at a 50% rate-50% every 50 days.) and establish the real "inhalation" risk as the aircraft Cabin is a very dangerous environment if contaminated.

[archae86]

Originally Posted by Jetstream Rider

Oh, and your smoke detectors contain an Alpha source too. There is an emitter and a detector. If smoke gets inbetween the two, it stops the Alpha getting to the detector and sets it off. I wouldn't be surprised it it were Polonium in them, but it could be many things.

I'd be surprised if any used the Polonium isotope in question here, as the half-life is so short as to give unacceptable product endurance (138 days). The one Polonium isotope with a more appropriate half-life is 209, but I don't think that is cheaply available.

The one detector I personally have disposed of (by shipping back the manufacturer, as instructed) used Americium. A quick check of references suggests it was probably Americium-241, with a several hundred year half-life.

As a minor clarification, I don't think these inexpensive devices contain a direct alpha detector. Rather they detect the flow of current resulting from ionization of air in the normal case. Smoke particles alter the ionization and hence the current.

None of which alters my agreement with what I take to be your underlying point. We do safely use a number of items containing radiation sources. Home smoke detectors are definitely one of them.

[edited to correct spelling error]

[Dyls]

Taken off Wikipedia


210Po
This isotope of polonium is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days. A milligram of 210Po emits as many alpha particles as 5 grams of radium. A great deal of energy is released by its decay with half a gram quickly reaching a temperature above 750 K. A few curies (gigabecquerels) of 210Po emit a blue glow which is caused by excitation of surrounding air. A single gram of 210Po generates 140 watts of power.[3] Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, 210Po has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites. A 210Po heat source was also used in each of the Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon, to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights. Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 microcuries of 210Po as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity in materials like photographic film.[4]. 210Po has very rare properties as an unstable isotope, as it decays only by emission of an alpha particle, not by emission of an alpha particle and a gamma ray.

Polonium is a highly radioactive and toxic element and is very difficult to handle. Even in milligram or microgram amounts, handling 210Po is extremely dangerous, requiring specialized equipment and strict handling procedures. Alpha particles emitted by polonium will damage organic tissue easily if polonium is ingested, inhaled, or absorbed (though they do not penetrate the epidermis and hence are not hazardous if the polonium is outside the body).

[Jetstream Rider]

I wouldn't worry about inhalation, in order to inhale enough to affect you, the Polonium would need to be in a state that was inhaleable. It is unlikely that it is*. Furthermore, the fact that no one has reported any symptoms (the media would jump on this pronto) and the fact that it has been stated that very small quantities were found, means the risk to you is extremely small. I understand your worries, but really, this is not a major cause for concern in terms of your own health. It may well be a major cause for concern to others, such as MI5 and 6, but not to you directly.

* if you had a lump of polonium on your desk, there is no danger of inhallation risk, if you had it mixed in with a liquid, it would need to be atomised or sprayed around to risk inhallation. Mixed with a liquid and just sitting there is no risk. The other form would be a powder, but even then it would need to be airborne rather than just sitting somewhere for inhallation to be a factor.

You are more at risk from stress related things due to worrying than health affects caused by Polonium.

86 - thanks for the added info on smoke detectors.

[archae86]

Originally Posted by ILS27LEFT

I think they should clarify the quantities found (apparently it takes around 50 days for the Polonium to disappear at a 50% rate-50% every 50 days.)

The radioactive decay half-life for Polonium 210 is a bit over 138 days. The 50 day number gets into the discussion as an approximate half-life for biological elimination from the human body, which is not relevant to the airplane contamination issue.

Given the length of time he lived, the man in question probably did not get more than a few times the lethal dose. I'd be stunned if secondary contamination victims in this incident got more than a tiny fraction. The short or long-term consequences at those levels would be exceedingly hard to detect on an individual level.

I'd estimate that the notifications are being done as a matter of courtesy, or bureaucratic pre-emption, not as a matter of health concern.

[late developer]

Originally Posted by Jetstream Rider

* if you had a lump of polonium on your desk, there is no danger of inhallation risk.

A. Right, and if you put a 'lump' as you put it, on your desk, how hot might it get under its own steam so to speak?

And when it warms up a bit? Then what?

B. I think if you throw a lighted match into a tank of JetA1 it is quite likely to go out. That doesn't make it something to ignore in aviation risk assessments.

This one warms up by itself .... it is not on the 'very radioactive' list of the 30most radioactive isotopes for nothing.

Someone earlier this afternoon on the beeb said a pepperpot full of Po210 can wipe out a town.

We might be getting real nuclear physicist spinners on the BBC now. A University of Surrey guest has just poo-pooed that and has said there isn't a pepperpot full of Polonium 210 in the whole world - yet I have read the largest amount manufactured at one go was 600g. If it wasn't full, then it was some pepperpot! It'll be long gone now of course - refer to A.

[vaneyck]

Originally Posted by Gertcha

This may seem like a stupid question, but if Polonium 210 can be shielded by a simple cardboard box or piece of paper, then how have traces of it been found on board these aircraft?

I too was wondering why they were finding Po 210 everywhere, including the aircraft. By coincidence I read this last night, in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, pp579-80:

...for reasons never satisfactorily explained by experiment, the metal migrates from place to place and can quickly contaminate large areas. "This isotope has been observed to migrate upstream against a current of air," notes a postwar British report on polonium, "and to translocate under conditions where it would appear to be doing so of its own accord." Chemists at Los Alamos learned to look for it in the walls of shipping containers when Thomas' foils came up short.

[Mac the Knife]

Originally Posted by Sunfish

If you read up in Wikipedia about Polonium 210, this is potentially more than just a scare.
"The maximum allowable body burden for ingested polonium is only 1,100 becquerels (0.03 microcurie), which is equivalent to a particle weighing only 6.8 × 10-12 gram. Weight for weight, polonium is approximately 2.5 × 1011 (250 billion) times as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. The maximum permissible concentration for airborne soluble polonium compounds is about 7,500 Bq/m3 (2 × 10-11 µCi/cm3). The biological halflife of polonium in humans is 30 to 50 days.[10]"
I think it is safe to assume that whoever dosed Litvinenko with Polonium is himself already dead.
God help us if anyone else has been contaminated with it.

That's the maximum allowable (safe-ish) body burden bright boy, NOT the LD50 lethal dose (which is at least 150 times higher).

Get a grip.

[Jetstream Rider]

Have a look at the excellent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium

Also see:

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/si...m,+radioactive

Where you will see that loads of people have been exposed to (very small amounts of) Polonium, without much effect. Those that did have higher incidence of cancer were exposed to more than you expect are on the aircraft in question.

Polonium certainly is dangerous stuff, however the amounts involved here and the means by which it kills you means the risk here is incredibly tiny.

Further to my post above, Polonium is easier to breathe in than I first suggested, however it is still unlikely that this is a factor in this case.

21 people have been referred for specialist testing in the same way that 3000 or so people were tested fairly recently for HIV when it was discovered that a nurse had it - its called being careful rather than suggesting all 3000 had HIV. This case is similar, it is unlikely that any of the 21 have anything to worry about.

To quote one doctor on the radio, you would have to had "licked the feet" of a poisoned person in order to feel the need to worry.

It still remains that if it were that much of a problem, people would have exhibited symptoms and died already. That hasn't happened (the media would have jumped on it), so I doubt there is much need for concern, although it is correct to be careful.

[11K-AVML]

Originally Posted by visibility3miles

And yes, although maybe 600 grams of polonium 210 may have been produced at one time per someone on this thread (what I'd seen was that 100 grams a year is produced worldwide), all the people who have or use polonium have publicly stated that no losses or thefts have been reported, so most of it is still under control.

Although this isn't strictly true because although we know the half-life of the isotope, no-one can say exactly how much there is at any one time because the decay is spontaneous and truly random.
As such, accounting for such materials always involves a degree of approximation.

Secondly, we don't know what the isotope involved on these aircraft are nor how they got there. Whether by accident or intentionally.
Let's not forget the Machiavellian nature of this - could conceivably be a red herring or a set up!

The reason, as I see it, for the aircraft examinations is not so much decontamination, but forensic inspection - obtaining evidence.
And if on considers the people so far known to be involved (i.e. by those investigating the case, not by the general public) they'd know their movements by now and thereby know which aircraft to inspect, hence how they know which aircraft are likely to be contaminated.

Unless of course it is all part of a ruse.

[kansasw]

Apparently* certain aircraft have been targeted for inspection and traces of polonium identified.
Apparently* polonium is a naturally occurring element found in tobacco, celery, or whatever other innocuous (well, tobacco is not, let's not quibble) sources.
Apparently* polonium is difficult to trace.
I have to wonder if the same processes used to identify polonium in certain suspect aircraft, would turn up similar evidence of polonium in other, or any, non-suspect aircraft. After all it does occur naturally so there might be some on the average airplane.
I have no dog in this race except to seek accuracy and truth.
*"Apparently" means "somebody else said this," and does not mean "I believe this."

[SaturnV]

Again, polonium 210 is a known contaminant of lead solder. How many grams of lead solder do you suppose might be on an airplane?

It seems you don't need a nuclear processing facility to extract polonium from lead solder. See

Polonium-210 is readily separable from a dissolved sample of lead by various chemical steps and autoelectroplates onto a silver disc with high efficiency. This disc can then be analyzed in a low-background alpha particle spectrometer to quantify the number of 21Po [sic] atoms on the disc. A tracer of 20$Po [sic] or 209Po is usually added at dissolution and simultaneously quantified in the alpha energy spectrometer to determine the chemical yield. A typical sample size is a few grams of lead, and a typical sensitivity for the procedure is on the order of 100 mBq/kg for an old lead sample that has the 210po in secular equilibrium with the 21Pb. Since the 21lPo half-life is -138 days, if the sample is analyzed three weeks after separation of the polonium, the sensitivity of any analytical procedure based on the determination of zl*Po will be reduced by an order of magnitude. Worse, if the processing step (melting, etc.) does not remove all the 210po from the lead sample, it would not be possible to accurately correct for fractional equilibrium, and the analytical result would lead to an erroneously high value for the 21Pb.

(emphasis added)
"The "discovery" of alpha activity in lead and solder"
Journal of Electronic Materials, Oct 2000 by Brodzinski, Ron

[late developer]

Originally Posted by SaturnV

Again, polonium 210 is a known contaminant of lead solder. How many grams of lead solder do you suppose might be on an airplane?

Well plenty! Especially an Airbus! But I also read that the solder used in computer applications (I assume airplanes might qualify?) use 'clean' or low-alpha lead (LAL), because 'normal' (part 210Pb which decays to 210Po) solder is a known cause of soft errors in chips.

Soggy chips anyone?

[Anotherpost75]

Daily Telegraph

[sky9]

An article in today's times that puts it all in perspective:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...481350,00.html

[pee]

Today one Finnair A/C has been grounded in Moscow as well. After the Airbus plane from Berlin via Helsinki landed in Sheremetyevo airport and all passengers left, some checks were carried on and the radiation level was found to be above normal. That was possibly due to the radioactive material contained in one piece of the luggage, some suggest. The return flight has been cancelled.

[cwatters]

Originally Posted by pee

Today one Finnair A/C has been grounded in Moscow as well.

Now cleared...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02139832.htm

Quote: Finnair's spokesman Taneli Hassinen said the investigation had discovered that the presence of radiation was due to a fully authorised low-level radiation cargo.

[cwatters]

It seems some commercial products contain more than just tiny ammounts. This article claims one antistatic brush available for $225 contains enough for 10 lethal doses...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/we...w/03broad.html