BA jetliners pronounced safe after radiation checks

LONDON, December 2 (RIA Novosti) - British Airways jetliners singled out for radiation checks as part of investigations into the death of a Russian ex-FSB officer in London have been pronounced safe, the airline said Saturday.

Britain's civil aviation authorities cleared a Boeing-767 passenger jet, grounded for two days at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, to return to London for a radioactive screening, BA said in a statement Friday.

The plane left Moscow without passengers.

Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's administration and a close associate of exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died in a London hospital with symptoms of radioactive poisoning November 23. British health officials said a large dose of polonium-210, a radioactive, toxic uranium by-product, was found in his body.

Following Litvinenko's death, Western media circulated a message purporting to be his deathbed note, in which he accused Putin of orchestrating his death, an allegation the president dismissed.

In ongoing investigations run by Scotland Yard, trace amounts of radiation were detected on two other BA planes Wednesday.

BA quoted British health officials as saying the risk to passengers who flew on the planes was very low.