On Saturday, August 25, at 8:11 PM, 8 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 4 LAFD Rescue Ambulances, 2 Hazardous Materials Teams, 3 EMS Battalion Captains, 1 Battalion Chief Officer Command Team, 1 Division Chief Officer Command Team, LAX Airfield Operations, LAX Customs & Border Protection, LAX Airport Police, LAPD and LA Co. Haz Mat, under a Unified Command, responded to a HAZ MAT incident at 5720 W. Imperial HWY in the LAX/Hotel Row area.
At 8:11 p.m., a call into the OCD Dispatch Center requested a Hazardous Materials team to respond to the Lufthansa Air Cargo facility located at Aviation and Imperial Highway. Lufthansa personnel reported that a box containing a low-grade radioactive material had been punctured by a forklift after it had been off-loaded from an aircraft.
The box, one of three, was being transferred from one location in the cargo facility to another when the incident occurred at 8:10 p.m. The Fire Department Haz Mat Task Force was able to safely encapsulate the breached box within another container, rendering the incident static.
Fire resources evaluated 31 workers in the area, who were non-symptomatic and showed no signs of contamination. All were released. No aircraft were in the immediate area at the time of the incident. Los Angeles County Haz Mat assumed the lead in the removal of the breached container. There was no other reports of injuries reported.
