The airline announced Wednesday that three short-haul Boeing-767 passenger aircraft from its fleet had been singled out by the British government as part of an ongoing investigation into the death last week of former Russian FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, diagnosed with radiation poisoning.
The two other planes, which had also traveled the Moscow-London route, earlier tested positive for radioactive contamination, and are currently grounded at London's Heathrow Airport. A team of specialists has been dispatched to the Moscow airport to check the third airliner.
The company said the planes made a total of 221 flights in Europe between October 25 and November 29.
British Airways officials said the company had been trying to contact and advise all 33,000 passengers who traveled on the planes from October 25, a week before Litvinenko claimed to have been poisoned in a London sushi bar.
However, authorities say the level of radioactivity discovered on the airliners is negligible, and the risk to passengers who traveled on the planes is very low.
The Moscow BA office said the third plane will remain grounded at Domodedovo Airport until official permission to fly the plane is received from the UK government. The return flight will be non-commercial, the office said.
Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence defector and a close associate of fugitive Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died last Thursday in a London hospital. British health officials said Friday a large dose of polonium-210, a toxic, radioactive uranium by-product, had been found in his body.
After Litvinenko died, the Western press circulated message purporting to be Litvinenko's deathbed note, in which he accused President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating his death.
The post-mortem and forensic examination of Litvinenko's body has been scheduled for December 1.
Scotland Yard investigators have also discovered traces of Po-210 at six locations in the British capital that Litvinenko visited at around the time of his alleged poisoning at the beginning of November, including Berezovsky's office.
Nikolai Kovalev, former head of the KGB's successor, the FSB, said the discovery of polonium in Berezovsky's office could imply his involvement in Litvinenko's death.
