Scrap metal air-freighted?

[Dougal2345]

Concerning the story about a scrap-metal consignment at Heathrow that is contaminated with uranium:

Uranium in cargo sparked alert at Heathrow Airport

Police are investigating after metal contaminated with uranium was found at London's Heathrow Airport last month.
Officers of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command responded to the security alert which was triggered on 29 December.
The Sun, which first reported the news, said the uranium came from Pakistan.
One line of inquiry is whether it was the result of "poor handling" in the country, the BBC was told. Police say there was no threat to the public.
It was found in a shipment of scrap metal, a source said.

It's not the uranium aspect that interested me so much, more that scrap metal from Pakistan would be sent by air.

Is scrap metal routinely carried around this way? My thoughts as a layman would be that it is heavy, low value, and non-perishable, so I'm surprised that it would be flown as cargo.

Or maybe I've misunderstood what the story was saying entirely...

 

[Ediswan]

It's not the uranium aspect that interested me so much, more that scrap metal from Pakistan would be sent by air.
Is scrap metal routinely carried around this way? My thoughts as a layman would be that it is heavy, low value, and non-perishable, so I'm surprised that it would be flown as cargo.

The Guardian version is that the uranium was within kilo metal bars. Whatever it is, it is not typical scrap metal.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...seizure-raises-questions-over-what-it-was-for

A discovery of metal bars embedded with uranium at Heathrow in late December has triggered an urgent counter-terrorism investigation, in an attempt to establish why it was concealed in an aeroplane shipment.

Scotland Yard said on Tuesday night the amount of contaminated material was “extremely small” and posed “no threat to the public” although some reports had suggested, incorrectly, that several kilograms of uranium itself were discovered.

The absence of danger was emphasised by multiple sources on Wednesday morning, although the way in which the uranium was discovered “in kilo bars” has raised questions whether there was a deliberate effort to conceal the presence of the radioactive element.