A radiography camera loaded with a 7.7-curie iridium-192 source was lost for about two weeks while moving by common carrier, then located by the carrier on Oct. 15, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission event notification report. The device belongs to Acuren Inspection Incorporated of Trussville, Alabama, and its disappearance was reported to state regulators on Oct. 13 as a lost source in transit.
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The NRC classed the event as non-emergency, and the report ends with the camera on its way back to Alabama. The record is thin on consequences but specific on the timeline, which shows how a shipment of this kind can go astray inside a carrier’s own network.
A shipment that never reached Texas
The NRC event notification report, event number 58492, says the camera was a QSA Global model D880, serial number D2705, holding a model 424-9 source, serial number 25977P, with an estimated 7.7 curies of iridium-192 as of Oct. 13. Acuren shipped it on Sept. 29 to QSA Global in Texas for a routine source exchange. It was due no later than Oct. 2, a deadline that passed 11 days before the source was reported to Alabama regulators as lost. The NRC logged the notification on Oct. 13 at 11:24 a.m. Eastern time, and the report was last updated on Oct. 15.
When the package did not arrive, the licensee’s radiation safety officer contacted the carrier, which said the package was sitting at its sorting facility in Memphis, Tennessee. On Oct. 13 the licensee received an email from the carrier saying the package could not be found there, and the safety officer then called Alabama radiation control at about 9:30 a.m. Central time to report a lost source in transit. In the report’s words, “the package could not be located in their Tennessee sorting facility.”
On Oct. 15 the carrier located the package, whose shipping label had been torn off. The report says the package is being returned to the licensee’s facility in Alabama. The carrier is identified only as a common carrier, and the NRC document does not name it.
What 7.7 curies means and who has to be told
Seven point seven curies is roughly 285 gigabecquerels, a working-size source for field radiography rather than the largest the industry uses. QSA Global’s 880 series of gamma-ray source projectors is described by the maker as industrial gamma radiography equipment supporting iridium-192, selenium-75 and ytterbium-169, with iridium-192 capacities ranging from 15 to 150 curies depending on the model. The report names the D880 designation, which that page does not list separately, so the series page is background on the equipment family rather than a spec sheet for this unit.
Federal rules set when a lost source must be reported. Under 10 CFR 20.2201, a licensee must report immediately when the lost quantity reaches 1,000 times the Appendix C amount and exposure to people in unrestricted areas appears possible, and within 30 days if material above 10 times that amount is still missing. A written report follows within 30 days of the telephone report, describing the circumstances, any possible doses and the steps taken to prevent a repeat.
Alabama is an Agreement State, which is why the report is labeled an Agreement State report and why Alabama’s Office of Radiation Control took the call. Under section 274 agreements with the NRC, 39 states license and regulate radioisotope materials themselves. The report was relayed to NRC headquarters by Sean Williams, who spoke to operations officer Robert Thompson, and Alabama assigned the case its own incident number, 26-017.
Gaps in the public record
The report contains no event-specific health assessment and does not say whether anyone was exposed. It carries only generic International Atomic Energy Agency category 3 language describing what such a source could do if not safely managed, so the document should not be read as either a clean bill of health or a finding of harm. Radiography sources of this type are sealed, and a general concern in any loss is that a finder could handle or open an unlabeled package without knowing what it holds, a risk made sharper here by the torn-off shipping label.
Alabama said it will inform the Tennessee Division of Radiological Health, since the package was last placed in a Memphis facility. The NRC report also does not say how the label came off, whether the package was opened, or whether the source was checked on recovery. Those are the questions a written follow-up under the lost-source rule is designed to answer, and the NRC’s event page is where any update to this entry would appear.
The camera’s shipping design is itself a safeguard. Radiography cameras of the 880 series are certified as Type B transport packages, according to an NRC certificate of compliance for the 880 series, an older revision that lists maximum iridium-192 activities of 150 curies for some versions. The current certificate was not read for this article, and the NRC report does not describe the condition of the package when it was recovered.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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