Could I board a commercial aircraft with a radioactive watch?

I have a government-issue Stocker & Yale watch with tritium markings. There is a nuclear trefoil on the back and there are instructions to treat it as radioactive waste when it is disposed of, instead of just tossing it in the trash.

With the terrorism paranoia sweeping the country, and with the fear especially concentrated at our airports, would I be allowed to board a commercial aircraft with my “radioactive” watch?

I don’t see why not. It’s not as if you can actually do anything on board a plane with a radioactive watch. Even if you smuggle all the parts necessary for a nuclear bomb on board and think you have the time to assemble it in flight AND not have anyone stop you you’d also need tens of thousands of such watches to get enough stuff to make the bomb work (even a ‘dirty’ bomb).

Given that the watch sits on your arm almost all the time with no ill effects I think it is reasonably safe to say that your watch is not of any concern to the airlines. I would also assume that whatever detectors the airlines would use to catch radioactive material would take into account tritium watch dials…they are very common.

Hi there, Johnny L.A.,

A tritium watch, eh? I’ve seen some of the radium dial watches. Interesting that you have that watch - it sounds pretty cool.

The easiest thing to do is to contact the airline and ask.

However, in my opinion, (I am an attorney for the Department of Nuclear Safety), your watch should be fine. Airports have metal detectors, not radiation detectors - unless you are planning on flying internationally in which a whole body scan would pick up the radioactivity. Tritium is fairly low level stuff so you should be fine. If you have any more questions, please feel free to e-mail me at: TibsTanglewood@aol.com

If you tell me what state you are in, I can even better assist you. As it is, I think you’re just fine. :slight_smile:

Tibs.

Really I’m just assuming it’s tritium. I don’t think radium has been used in watches for a long time. FWIW, it’s 1990s-issue that I bought through a surplus catalog. The manual-wind watches are hard to find, but there is an NSN-numbered quartz version that’s very common. I’m pretty sure the nylon/plastic case and plastic crystal are more than adequate for shielding the small amount of material. I’m in CA, BTW.

I don’t think that you could make a nuclear weapon out of tritium, but if you get enough of it you can use it in a “dirty bomb”.

What prompted the question is the paranoia surrounding airport security. My mother, who is not exactly an NFL linebacker, had her nail clippers confiscated at an airport. People can no longer carry a pocket knife, like the one with the one-inch blade I have on my key ring, onto an aircraft. I’ve heard you can’t even carry tweezers. If the terrorists wanted to scare people into taking ridiculous precautions, then the terrorists have won.

Given the hysteria over the most innocent of objects, and given the current concern over “dirty bombs”, I was wondering if it extended to actual radioactive markings on watches.

Most luminous dials on watches use non-radioactive luminous paint which ‘stores’ light - it typically only remains luminous for up to an hour after each exposure to light.

You can find out if your is of this type by shining a light on it briefly at night (with your eyes closed so that they don’t lose their sensitivity); if it appears much brighter afterwards, then it is of the photochemical type, not radioactive.

Johnny,

I would imagine that it is probably tritium in your watch. It is used a lot in keychains and exit signs (so that when the power goes out, you can still see the lighted signs to exit the building).

Another example of a product similar to your watch is a smoke detector which may contain americium. They should be disposed of properly, as well. While tritium seems pretty harmless (and the amount in your watch is probably pretty safe), we had a guy steal an exit sign out of his company’s trash bin. He thought that glowing material (tritium) would look GREAT on the end of his gun sight when he was hunting in the dark. So he busted open the sign.

Cost of radioactive clean up: $65,000.

Who paid? The company - for not disposing of the material properly.

You don’t have nearly that amount in your watch but I’d still dispose of it properly. In our state, people who own low level radioactive products like your watch get what we call a “general license” which means they get it by virtue of owning the product. With that general license comes the requirement of proper disposal and the hook to assess them clean-up costs. There is probably something similar in CA.

Tibs.

Mangetout: The dial is marked “H3” and has a nuclear trefoil on it. The back is marked “DISPOSE OF RAD WASTE”, and the box says “self luminous”.

NSN for anyone who has access to a catalog is NSN-6645-00-952-3767.

It’s old enough now that it’s no longer self-luminous, but I’m thinking that all it would take is for someone to notice the trefoil. And what if it were new and still emitting?

I’m just asking for general information, BTW. I have lots of watches and I only wear this G.I. one when I think I might be in a situation where it might get banged up.

Oh, and Thanks Tiburon. :slight_smile:

Tiburon: Thanks again. (You posted your last message before I posted mine.) I’m not going to dispose of my watch. I tend to collect them. If it stops working I can always use it as a prop or something. (Too cheap to repair – although I’ve seen non-working 1970s versions – with the metal case – going for about $50 at Defense Dept. auctions in the mid-1980s.)

Tritium is a key component in Hydrogen bombs. Tritium is heavy hydrogen (it has 2 neutrons). So, it most certainly could be used to make a nuclear weapon. However, you would still need alot more of it than would be in a watch AND you would still need enough fissionable material to make a conventional nuke to set off the tritium (and likely deuterium secondary. You would also need an extraordinary amount of technical knowledge. A simple fission bomb is pretty easy to make if you have the fissionable materials handed to you. Building an efficient package to detonate the hydrogen part is supposed to be very difficult technically.

As to the safety of tritium:

Tritium emits beta particles only (electrons). Maximum energy is 18 keV, average is 6 keV. It takes 70 keV to make it though the layer of dead outer skin layer. So, it poses no risk externally. Beta decay (if I remember correctly) is the process of a neutron emitting an electron and turning into a proton. In this case, that would turn the tritium into light helium gradually. It would go from a proton and two neutrons to an atom with two protons and one neutron. That is a stable isotope of helium and things stop right there. Tritium is chemically identical to normal hydrogen and can substitute for normal hydrogen in water. Ingesting water contaminated thus, is a health risk as every living cell in our bodies readily take water inside. From that range, even that low energy release can do damage.

Glad to be of any help, Johnny.

Tibs.