Lost Cs-137 capsule in Australia

[sgt_bear]

Hi folks,

I've read in our local news that a capsule containing Cs-137 was lost in Australia while being transported from a mine.
More can be read here:

[broken link removed - Steven]

One thing that I notice, is that our newspapers always mention that the capsule is very hard to find and probably will never be found. I know this could be overreacting of the media, but it seems that the search is still going on. I've also seen videos of firefighters carrying detectors and walking on the road.

Therefore i wonder, why not use helicopter devices?

Given the 9GBq mentioned in the article, calculated the following:
Assuming the Helicopter flying in the middle of the road, and assuming a diameter of 20m of the road, this would result in 10m of each side of the helicopter. Assuming a flight height of 25m, the maximum distance maximum distance to the source would be around 27m. With 9GBq this would still be a dose of 0.8uSv which is very well detectable.

So I wonder why this is no option / not used in this scenario?

I'm specifically asking because I remembered a test scenario from 2009 where here in Switzerland exactly something like this was trained successfully.
The post below is in german, but on page 7 you can see some graphs of the flight path and finding the sources
https://www.naz.ch/downloads/de/%C3%9Cb ... 9%20de.pdf

[Sesselmann]

Jonathan,

It's hard to imagine what Western Australia looks like, check out google satellite images, I think it would be possible to Loose Kiernobyl over there 😂

Steven

Switzerland in Australia

[iRad]

The article does not say, but perhaps the source is still in some kind of shielding. I cannot imagine handling and transporting a source like that without multiple layers of shielding. Too bad the article does not describe better what happened, other to say the "unit (source) fell through a bolt hole" in its container??? One might imagine that local handling of the item would involve a smaller shielded enclosure, and transportation would require an even larger container with greater shielding. If indeed the source is still inside a smaller enclosure or shield meant for more direct handling purposes within the mine, that would certainly make it harder to detect from a distance.

[Rob Tayloe]

I thought that I'd heard early this morning on the BBC that the lost Cs-137 source had been found. A google search revealed some news articles -

https://www.foxnews.com/world/pea-sized ... ssive-hunt

https://news.abplive.com/news/world/aus ... ch-1579419

[Sesselmann]

Yes on todays news.

Found by a vehicle travelling at 70km/h

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-02/ ... /101919726

Steven