In an annual pregame tradition as sure as the coin toss, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will again police this year’s Super Bowl for signs of radiological dangers.
The NNSA Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measuring System swept the area around Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday to measure background radiation, and is scheduled to do so again Sunday ahead of the big game.
The team of contractors, based out of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, flies an NNSA-owned twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter, which is equipped with a commercially available, large-volume gamma-ray spectrometer, an NNSA spokesperson said.
The sweeps measures naturally occurring background radiation ahead of the Super Bowl, creating a baseline for a third sweep on game day. A radiological weapon would stand out against the baseline the team collected this week.
The helicopter will fly in a grid pattern, dropping as low as 150 feet and flying at about 80 mph, the NNSA said in a press release. Flights will be conducted only during daytime and will range across “Atlanta and areas in and around Buckhead,” Ga., the release says.
One of the NNSA’s missions is to prevent a nuclear terror attack. Some fear terrorists might attack soft targets such as a sporting event with a so-called dirty bomb: a package of nuclear material dispersed by conventional explosives.
Super Bowl LIII pits American Football Conference champions the New England Patriots against National Football Conference champions the Los Angeles Rams.
It is the ninth Super Bowl trip for New England’s dynastic duo of quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick.
The NNSA has the pair beat. The semiautonomous nuclear security agency has “supported public safety efforts at 10 Super Bowls, starting with Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix in 2008,” the NNSA spokesperson told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
