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Date Published: 17/12/2024

Madrid's Adolfo Suárez airport loses a very dangerous radioactive container

The Nuclear Safety Council warned that the package was lost in the cargo terminal

There has been a report from the Nuclear Safety Council stating that four radioactive sources of selenium (se-75) have gone missing after failing to turn up at the cargo terminal of Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas Airport.

The four radioactive sources which had gone missing measure category 2, on a scale of 1 to 5, that designate how dangerous a material is to human beings and life more generally. The Nuclear Safety Council had stated that the material is properly encapsulated and shielded to prevent radiation to the outside, but it was still a serious incident which needed to be dealt with promptly.

Category 2 can be extremely dangerous to people because its radioactivity entails radiological risks if it is no longer protected by its shielding. However, as long as the material remains within the transport package, it does not pose any danger to people, the council stated.

The material is Selenium 75. Selenium 75 is a radioactive isotope that is used in the field of industrial radiography. The Nuclear Safety Council was in communication with the community of Madrid’s protection Department to try and figure out what had happened and how to manage the incident and retrieve the package.

The Nuclear Safety Council stressed that if anyone located the package they must avoid handling it because of the danger that it poses. They were also informed that they must contact the relative authorities and the police upon finding the package.

Following the alert of the missing package and the mobilisation of a team of inspectors who went to Madrid’s airport to find it, technicians confirmed that at 8.30pm the radioactive material had been located in the cargo terminal with no damage to the package. Thankfully no one was harmed in the incident and the material was recovered in a short time period.

Finally, it has been noted that this is not the first time that the very same airport has lost a package containing radioactive material. Two and a half years ago a very similar incident happened, in which the airport misplaced an item of radioactive material and the Nuclear Safety Council was left hunting to return the package before any harm was done.

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