Weather Radar left on

[MrBlobby05]

Wondering if someone could pass on some advice.

Yesterday, before starting a duty I preflighted the aircraft, whilst the other crew were gathering there bits. I was at the nose of the aircraft for a combined time of about 2 mins.

On getting to the cockpit I realised that the wx radar was left on and as the aircraft was on GPU it was scanning. (it doesnt operate of the squat switch - thanks BAE)

Our company does not have any procedure on how to deal with this.

My questions are - how long before my organs start to cook? Is 2 mins long enough to create a problem?

Also, what symptoms should I be looking for? I know your eyes and testes are the most sensitive to exposure, and havent noticed any problem with my eyes. Dont know about the testes, but just had my first child so, wont know for a while i guess.

Should I get checked out? Will the doc ground me?

Your help would be appreciated

[Capt Pit Bull]

OK, totally not an aviation medicine person here.

We have the procedures about radar safety for a reason. So you are right to be concerned.

I would hazard a guess that a couple of minutes in front of a radar would be on the verge of being nasty, yet in many instances not being that big a deal.

I would also hazard a guess that if you havn't had any ill feelings by now, you probably aren't going to, and that any long term damage has been done and there is little a doctor can do to remedy it.

Having said all of that, my advice is the same as anytime anyone injures themselves in the slightest when at their place of work - namely make it a matter of record. That way, if a few years down the line your nads fall off (or similar) at least you can defend yourself for needing time off. One mans industrial injury is another mans skiving workshy target for disciplinary action.

Hope you don't suffer any ill effects.

Cheers,

CPB

[HughMartin]

Can't guarantee the authenticity or authority of this report but it should give you re-assurance.

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q315.html

[IRRenewal]

Apart from the information in that link, on your walk-around you will generally be under the nose of the A/C, rather than in front of the nose of your A/C. 'In front' is where the radiation is, not 'under'.

[Ranger 1]

I can remember standing in front of a DH-7 about 10 years ago waiting for it start, about 5 mins, only to hear the Capt say during the pre start checks to the 1st officer over the Ground headset "Who the :mad: switched that on " which was indeed was the weather radar:uhoh:
I have Marshalled thousands of aircraft over the years so I guess I have had my occaisional dose:\ , try to keep an eye on it for us chaps, thanks :ok:

[270/55G75]

I believe the hazardoes zone of a modern wx-radar is about 50 cm cone. Depending on your radar power output. It should not cause you any problems. In the old days it probably would have been dangerous.

[Gentle Climb]

You really must report it. I guess that you will only be grounded if something is wrong with you, inwhich case you need to know now anyhow.

If you need to make a claim under insurance in the future, you must have documentation. Hopefully, there is nothing wrong as you were below the front of the radar and hoepfully at some distance, but you must make sure.
Good Luck.

[effortless]

What we work to in health and safety:

Microwave radiation is insidious. It cooks watery parts of your body. Vulnerable areas are the eyes, kidneys and liver. The brain is also vulnerable but this has a very much lower water content so takes longer to cook. Symptoms may occur quite soon but effects are often cumulative. I understand that kidney and liver damage in this instance is not permenant unless it is severe. In any event kidneys need to be fifty percent damaged to show altered creatinine levels which is a major measure of function. Genetic level disruption is harder to establish and, as far as I can see, requires long term exposure. You are more at risk from high altitude flying. The highest risk, we are told, from low level exposure, is that of cataracts. You would need quite a dose to have kidney or liver damage.

Under the UK health and safety regulations I would have thought that you were obliged to report this. It is certainly in your interests to do so. I work partly in the health and safety industry and part of my brief has involved close proximity to cell masts. I know that these run on a higher wattage but we are not allowed within one metre underneath or to the rear of a transmitter. These are similarly directional to a radar installation. Anyone working in this situation can ring the controller and have the cell turned off and this is done without question. That is how seriousely this is taken.

Always report incidents is the rule but of course we do use our own judgement.

[gotak]

Not sure if this applies to weather radar on civilian aircrafts. From the Prof (also an air force major) who taught me my realtime systems course most military radars have a weight on wheels hardware interlock. Basically the radar's prevented from radiating when there's weight on the wheels. Seems like something that would be on civilian weather radar systems too. Considering that in many airports you park the planes nose pointed towards the passenger waiting area.

[zehnder]

Dear fried gibblets,
I have some experience in dealing with RF radiation in the past. Although Radar is a directed beam, there will be side lobes of radiation propagating in directions other than the main lobe. This is a characteristic of all trasmitters, you can NEVER get all the energy to go in the direction you want to. Take ILS for example, false glide slopes I think are an example of this but I not sure and the back beam. In all cases, these lobes have a very small fraction of the total energy and therefore have a much less dose. But in your case, this should be trivial as the squat switch should have disabled the Radar. I have one question though, does the squat switch disable the Radar or is the Radar warm and simply not transmitting?
If I may be crude, this whole incident is not one of your gibblets getting cooked, but one of incompetence. The word incident must be applied. I personally have a very short tolerance for these sorts of things. If the crew made an honest mistake well then fine, I make stupid mistakes myself. I get very embarressed and in this case I would probably be terrified I've denied your loins the opportunity to make little MrBlobby05's and have religated you to shooting blanks - again a trivial comment as this is not the case with the aforementioned squat switch. But in this industry the responsibilty is not simply upon us as pilots to lower the gear before landing or deal with emergencies by the book, but to take this responsibility of safety throughout OUR industry. It's ours, not anyone else's, we die first. Ignoring errors, regardless of how innocent, it is unprofessional and dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I am not a cock sucking manager, I'm just quoting a politically correct Air Law Instructor I had at Jerez. In any case, you know this,otherwise you would never have posted this comment.
Go on then, put your hand up and report it. You don't have a rash or sunburn by any chance?
Congradulations on junior by the way.

[FlapsOne]

Airbus quotes 5 mtrs and +- 135 degrees of cone as the safety area.

Makes me believe the actual 'danger' area is significantly less than that.

Low power is the modern way.

[Prof2MDA]

I would venture that the danger from the newer civi units that run on very low power is not all that significant. A lot of the fear is based on those older 3000 watt units, not the 150 watt units of today.

[screw fix diret]

Same sort of thing happened to my Flt Cdr. The student had the radar on while he was conducting his walk round (seaking HAS6). We had a load of boffins flown out and they determined that there wasn't a problem.
While they were there we took the oppertunity of questioning them about the various radars that were on when we were hovering in front of them, reference a very high proprtion of girls being borne to Naval Aviators at that time. They again said it had nothing to do with radiation. Not sure wether I believed them or not as you could hear the radar energy going through the airframe on occassions.
Good luck though, sounds like if there was anything wrong you'll have known about it by now.