Nuclear Sniffing the Super Bowl hotel

Noah Wulf, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Both teams facing off this weekend in Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII are lodging less than one mile from each other. The San Francisco 49ers are staying at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort. The Kansas City Chiefs are staying at the Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort. Both teams have access to all the grounds in the week leading up to the main event including 2 golf courses on the sprawling property.

In years' past when a Super Bowl matchup was approaching, one could spot nuclear sniffing aircraft in the host city scanning popular sights for elevated levels of radiation. In recent days, there has been one helicopter that stands out: N412DE. This helicopter is operated by the US Department of Energy. It is equipped with the right kind of technology to do this kind of detection.

N412DE flew on 2/5/24 in various sites near Las Vegas as it worked to detect elevated levels of radiation

The north/south surveying on the right side of that image above is the helicopter scanning the entire property and surrounding area of the host hotels.

Closeup image of the helicopter flight as it scanned for radiation

Here's a link to this exact flight: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a4dbde&lat=36.062&lon=-115.119&zoom=11.2&showTrace=2024-02-05&timestamp=1707155840

If you want to read more about this nuclear sniffing program, see the link below. This particular article is in direct reference to sniffing for radiation in Arizona for last year's Super Bowl: https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-conduct-aerial-radiation-assessment-survey-over-glendale-jan-15-18

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