Re: Uranium and Thorium in aircraft

["Hans Messersmith" <Hmessers@isdh.state.in.us>]

Here in Indiana, we routinely have the radiation alarms at non-ferrous metals plants and scrap dealers going off in response to the thoriated metal described in Mr. Johnson's post.  The metal is either in finished form (old jet engine parts, etc.) or its slag or splatterings from the smelting process.  These loads are always rejected by the receiving company.  Finished parts, in our experience, our almost always releated to Dept of Defense aircraft, and are usually turned over to our local DOD radiation safety activity.  While the external radiation levels are very low, as Mr. Johnson says, it is very detectable.

Just for your info,

Hans J. Messersmith
hmessers@isdh.state.in.us
Indoor and Radiologic Health
Indiana State Department of Health


>>> "Douglas A. Johnson" <doug-johnson@tamu.edu> 04/21 4:24 PM >>>
This is certainly information that none of us hope to need, but should
anyone be required to do raduiation surveys of downed aircraft expect to
find some radioactive material.  There may be considerable counts from the
use of uranium and thorium.  
The current El-Al controversy is (again) linking health effects from the
620 pounds of depleted Uranium used in the wings of the Boeing 747 as
ballast. (286 pounds were not recovered). Thorium has been used in small
amounts as an alloy for high temp/strength properties in some jet turbines.
 It is a fraction of a percent, but plenty enough to get counts.
For memory's sake the El-Al crashed in Amsterdam in 1992 and was carrying
DMMP, supposedly a non-toxic component of sarin nerve gas.  As I recall,
news reports showed teams doing clean up in some kind of contamination suits. 
Doug

Douglas A. Johnson
Senior Health Physicist/Laser Safety Officer
Environmental Health and Safety
Texas A&M University
College Station,Texas 77843-4472
Voice: 409/845-1392
Fax: 409/845-1348
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