Are you a frequent flyer?
Do you know what is the radiation footprint on your body for one hour in the air, at 37,000 feet?
A few months ago, we traveled to Property Scan clients overseas by plane. Given the short stay, we chose to travel with a low-cost airline and packed all our equipment in our hand luggage.
We had just gained altitude, at about 37,000 feet, when the man next to us began to look around rather suspiciously. After a few seconds he asked us if we were hearing any strange noise. We have paused our talk for a while in order to listen for the suspicious sound and … to our surprise, we recognized the frantic screeching of the Gamma Scout Geiger counter we carried with us.
The Geiger counter has a built-in alarm that activates above 0.700 µSv/h, the purpose of which is to warn the measuring expert that the surrounding environment is dangerous. To our astonishment, the counter was “hot” … reading in between 3.500-4.500 µSv/h or 10 times the safe rate on earth. To give you a flavor of the magnitude of the measured values, the highest gamma we have measured in one of our client’s property was 1.000 µSv/h.
Upon return, we did some calculations to represent and visualize what happens during flight. In one hour at 37,000 feet, the human body is exposed to as much radiation as it would normally receive in one day on earth, or the equivalent of a dental X-ray.
The equivalent of an 8-10 hours flight is as much as a chest x-ray or nearly 10 days of normal background radiation on earth.
Do you fly every week on business?
Do you take a dental X-ray every week?
For us, this flight was extremely empirically rewarding in terms of new surveys we have done, although slightly stressful to our fellow passenger in the next seat.
On the other hand, oxidative stress from excessive exposure to radiation was certainly more stressful on all our bodies during this two-hour flight.