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Uranium found in Heathrow shipment

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ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 16 Jan 23, 11:05Post
A man in his 60s has been arrested on suspicion of a terror offence after traces of uranium were found at Heathrow Airport in December.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64283105

What surprises me about this is that the uranium was found in "a shipment of scrap metal". Who sends scrap metal by air?
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
JLAmber (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 31 Jan 23, 21:27Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:Who sends scrap metal by air?


Has to be a watch/clock maker. Some Victorian timepieces utilised some really funky materials including radioactive elements. There was a case of a houseboat that caused most of Amsterdam to be shut down because of a radioactive case clock.
A million great ideas...
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 01 Feb 23, 18:17Post
Ah, that kind of scrap metal, not the industrial kind. Makes sense.

I'm intrigued by this houseboat story.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
JLAmber (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 01 Feb 23, 20:46Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:I'm intrigued by this houseboat story.


I'm not sure of all the details, but in short there was a political gathering of some sort going on which clearly involved drones/helicopters checking for any terrorist activity. One of the big old houseboats you see just outside the centre of Dam had a large industrial case clock (I think the translation called it an early clocking-in clock) that contained uranium and tritium, because 19th century clockmakers were quite mad. The house boat was being moved for maintenance so the security services picked up a source of radiation on the move in the city and went into full panic mode before establishing that it was infact a reasonably harmless clock. Fun times!

It has been suggested that another explanation for the LHR incident could be a bullion dealer. Gold can sometimes be contaminated with heavy metals such as uranium which are present in similar mineral seams, particularly in Canada where uranium and gold are mined side-by-side, and can remain unnoticed in precious metal cleanups due to the yellowish colour of uranium ore.

It's really interesting stuff. If only my Father was still functioning - he was a global knowledge on all things radioactive.
A million great ideas...
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 03 Feb 23, 01:20Post
JLAmber wrote:
ShanwickOceanic wrote:Who sends scrap metal by air?


Has to be a watch/clock maker. Some Victorian timepieces utilised some really funky materials including radioactive elements. There was a case of a houseboat that caused most of Amsterdam to be shut down because of a radioactive case clock.



Coolest thing I've learned this month. That's faint praise, so let me change it: in the past month.
 

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