The successful search for a tiny radioactive capsule that fell off the back of a mining truck in remote Western Australia was hailed as a “needle in a haystack” moment.
The suspect was 6mm in diameter and 8mm long, and the crime scene stretched 1400km along the Great Northern Highway between Perth and Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri iron ore mine. But freedom of information documents obtained by Crikey show a single search party would span almost 3000km in five days in the hope of locating the capsule containing the radioactive substance caesium-137.
An email from the Australian Defence Force’s Military Strategic Commitments (MSC) division lays out a five-day search operation for a team of six vehicles — two from the ADF, three from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, and a special “Mine Spec Prado” hire car courtesy of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).
The plan — a combination of roadside “survey” work and driving at “normal speed” — spanned hundreds of kilometres and highlights just how extraordinary the capsule’s recovery was.
Day one for the six-vehicle-strong search party kicked off in Perth on Monday January 30 — five days after the official hunt for the capsule began.
The team started small-scale surveying “both sides” of the metro routes from “Malaga/Airport to Muchea”. Crikey was not privy to the exact course taken but travelling between Malaga and Muchea via State Route 4 and the Tonkin Highway totals 38.4km as the car drives. Subbing Malaga for Perth Airport tacks on a few extra miles (for clarity and consistency’s sake: kilometres). That driving distance is 53.3km.
Day two — January 31 — the troupe upped the ante and surveyed the north side of the road from Muchea to Paynesfind, around 390km.
On day three — February 1 — surveillance stretched out further along National Highway 95. It spanned 340km between Paynesfind and Meekatharra and then another 422km between Meekatharra and Newman (again the team searched the north side of the road).
The capsule was located mid-morning on the same day by an ARPANSA vehicle loaded with radiation detection equipment and travelling at 70 kilometres an hour. It was found two metres off the Great Northern Highway, 74km south of Newman, and approximately 120km into its journey from the mine site.
It’s unclear from the email whether the search team’s ARPANSA “Mine Spec Prado” was the vehicle that struck gold. There were more than 100 police, firefighters, WA health officials, and ADF and Commonwealth officials involved in the search.
“I do want to emphasise this is an extraordinary result,” WA Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson told a press conference shortly after the capsule was located.
The original plan never played out in full, but on day four the team was set to survey the north side of road between Newman and the Gudai-Darri mine site (156km via Marble Bar Road and State Route 138 or 234km via National Highway 95), and the south side of the road from Newman to Meekatharra (422km) before onto Paynes Find (340km).
On the fifth day, they would have continued surveillance on the south side of the road from Paynes Find to Perth Metro (at least a 410km trip). There were also vehicles allocated to surveil Gudai-Darri to Newman (156km or 234km).
All up, the five-day plan clocked between 2670 and 2845km, depending on which way Google Maps was inclined to drive.
