A mistake in Safety procedure during a welding radiography operation

Incident report

October 13, 2000

During the night of 12 to 13 October 2000, in the AEC facility (1) (UP2 800 plant), a pipe weld radiography operation was carried out in one part of the facility with an operator present in an adjacent room, within the radiography safety perimeter.

Alerted by his dosimeter alarm, the technician immediately left the room. The development of his dosimeter film did not show notable exposure (below statutory film detection limits). This event had no consequence, however, due to the fact that the measures to be taken in such an operation were not respected, a proposal was made to the Safety Authority to class the event Level 1 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

(1) Atelier d'Entretien des Chateaux (cask maintenance facility) part of the NPH building