Radiation detectors at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport went off this week after two planes returned from Tokyo, raising concerns over how the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan will impact the United States. Radiation was also detected on an American Airlines plane that landed at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport.

 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials said readings taken from cargo containers on the planes indicated that passengers were not in any danger, and that only trace amounts of radiation were discovered. CBP has begun monitoring airline and maritime traffic for radiation contamination “out of an abundance of caution.”

 

Commercial aircraft flying over Japan are being routed to avoid the airspace above the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Also, air traffic controllers have been told where airborne concentrations of radiation are residing over the Pacific Ocean so flights can steer clear of any danger.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Radiation on O’Hare Flights Deemed No Threat (by Julie Johnsson, Chicago Tribune)