What Pilots See When You Shine a Laser Pointer at Aircraft

_Tombstone_

http://mentalfloss.com/article/65424/what-pilots-see-when-you-shine-laser-pointer-aircraft

Fairly blinding alright. Haven't heard of a case of this lately, must be dying down.

Is their not a snazzy pair of glasses Pilots could wear to counter the effect if someone does shine a laser at them?

Growler!!!

Problem is, is that the lasers are more noticeable at night. The cockpit lights and screens are generally turned down to improve vision and lessen the effect of transitioning from instruments to Papi's and runway lights. The only glasses would be of the darker variety and defeat the purpose of adjustable lighting.

We're lucky in that we have sunscreens on the side windows which are reflective to the outside. Lift these up and it negates the problem of lasers, leaving the forward screens clear.

The problem seems to have lessened of late in my own experience.

pepe the prawn

I've heard a good few warnings from Atc in Dublin to traffic in the past few weeks, still seems to be an occasional problem up there unfortunately...

Lurching

Seems to be very common with Police choppers in the States.

Long Time Lurker

The mind boggles! Why would anybody do it in the first place. The laws on this need to be severe and enforced rigorously.

looksee

Why would any Joe Soap need a laser light in the first place? Note I said need there, not want.

_Tombstone_

Fun Fact: It'd take 200,000, 5mw Lasers, pointed at your Eye (less resistance to melt your brain) to kill someone.

http://gizmodo.com/how-many-laser-pointers-would-it-take-to-kill-a-human-1728253506?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

the_syco

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

200,000, 5mw Lasers, pointed at your Eye (less resistance to melt your brain) to kill someone.

5mw are generally green. Blue is 10mw (but not really visible by humans?), and yellow can be between 6mw and 19mw.

5mw may not kill you, but it will damage your eyes. IMO, there is no reason for you to own a green laser. House cats will generally go after the red laser, and although they'll also go after the green laser, it will damage their eyes. And if you've played laser tag with the red laser, you know it's only a matter of time.

Do we throw the scrotes that point lasers at planes into jail yet?

_Tombstone_

Jaysus, they go up to 500mw!!

http://www.tested.com/tech/830-know-your-laser-spectrum-red-vs-green-vs-blue-vs-yellow/

K.Flyer

English Police track and arrest person pointing Green Laser at Police helicopter.

the_syco

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Jaysus, they go up to 500mw!!

http://www.tested.com/tech/830-know-your-laser-spectrum-red-vs-green-vs-blue-vs-yellow/

700mW in blue, and 900mW in green. Or in a friggin lighsaber :eek:

I think most of the usual offenders have probably gotten fined. Vaguely remember a fine being brought in a while back.

roundymac

Could a person be arrested and charged with an offence if they were caught doing that here and what could they expect if found guilty. A slap on the wrist?

K.Flyer

roundymac wrote: »

Could a person be arrested and charged with an offence if they were caught doing that here and what could they expect if found guilty. A slap on the wrist?

Possible Offences:
Individuals caught shinning a laser at an aircraft can be charged with the specific offence of "Operating a Dangerous Light". Article 20 of the Irish Aviation Authority, Aerodromes and Visual Ground Aids (Order), (S.I. 355 of 2008) states:
"A person shall not exhibit any light which:
(a) by reason of its glare is liable to endanger aircraft taking off from or landing at an aerodrome; or
(b) by reason of its liability to be mistaken for an aeronautical light is able to endanger aircraft".
An Garda Síochána also have the power to charge individuals under the provisions of the following:
Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997
Section 2: Assault.
Section 13: Endangerment.

PukkaStukka

^^^^

This plus (potentially) possession of an offensive weapon

Lustrum

I had my first experience of this recently going into Florence, it's not nice to have someone shining a laser into the cockpit from 900ft above the ground until just before touchdown. We reported it to the tower, and when they let the next aircraft know they said they had the same thing the previous night too.

Morons is the only word I can think of to describe anyone who does this

smurfjed

In my part of the world, some of the aircraft will detect the laser and will attack it with an onboard laser or provide the location to an airborne military helicopter.

Strangely enough we don't have any reports of lasers !

_Tombstone_

Laser strikes on aircraft hit record pace

Nate--IRL--

Wow!

Man gets 14 years for pointing laser at helicopter

Nate

Shannon757

Good enough for him firstly for shining it at a children's hospital helicopter and then the police heli investigating that. What an idiot.

ProfessorPlum

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Wow!

Man gets 14 years for pointing laser at helicopter

Nate

Little bit out of date that one. The sentence was reduced on appeal to 5 years.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/man-who-originally-got-14-years-for-laser-strike-re-sentenced-to-5-years/

bronn

A BA pilot may have eye damage from a powerful laser. Article here in today's Guardian.

What sort of shíte would do this? Jesus. :mad:

Shannon757

_Tombstone_

Pilots' union calls for laser pointers to be classed as offensive weapons

A Virgin Atlantic flight to New York was forced to turn back to Heathrow after a laser was shone into the cockpit while it flew at 8,000ft.

The pilot declared a medical emergency about an hour into the flight when his co-pilot was taken ill. Scotland Yard was today hunting the source of the attack, which took place a few miles west of Heathrow last night.

Virgin Atlantic said the plane returned to the airport as a “precautionary measure” and the airline was helping police try to identify the suspect.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/new-yorkbound-plane-forced-to-turn-back-to-heathrow-after-laser-attack-a3180186.html

roundymac

Shannon757 wrote: »

Is that the "automatic" pilot on BA?:D

VeVeX

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Pilots' union calls for laser pointers to be classed as offensive weapons

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/new-yorkbound-plane-forced-to-turn-back-to-heathrow-after-laser-attack-a3180186.html

The nanny state at its best. What about all the perfectly good uses for lasers?

Irish Steve

VeVeX wrote: »

The nanny state at its best. What about all the perfectly good uses for lasers?

And putting the lives of several hundred people at risk, and possibly ending the career of a pilot is a valid use of a laser?

There are very few valid uses of the military type laser that are being used to carry out these crimes, and if classifying them as an offensive weapon makes it harder for them to be abused in ways like this, then so be it.

Eugene Norman

If a laser is pointed at a plane then maybe bring an attempted mass murder charge.

postitnote

In fairness to VeVex above, a laser pointer used specifically for the 'torturing' of cats is certainly not comparable to the lasers being used to attempt to blind pilots.

I'm assuming humour was meant by their post.

I fully support the increase in punishment for owning and using these high powered lasers.

I fully support the owning of lasers capable of nothing more than annoying pets and pointing at stuff on projectors also.

VeVeX

Irish Steve wrote: »

And putting the lives of several hundred people at risk, and possibly ending the career of a pilot is a valid use of a laser?

Absolutely not.

I'm of the opinion that we should pursue the offender rather than creating an unnecessary offense. The vast majority of people who have lasers would never dream of pointing it at an aircraft or using it for any other means which causes harm.

If lasers being pointed at aircraft is a problem lets address it with a bit of Police work, lengthy mandatory jail time and heavy fines.

Storm 10

Have to be honest and say that I have a small laser that I got to play with the cat, its great fun and if you just mention the word laser he is up like a shot looking for it, in relation to the Virgin incident could this possibly be terror related by someone who has got hold of a military laser. You can purchase any large lasers in the likes of Greece and Turkey.

Irish Steve

VeVeX wrote: »

Absolutely not.

I'm of the opinion that we should pursue the offender rather than creating an unnecessary offense. The vast majority of people who have lasers would never dream of pointing it at an aircraft or using it for any other means which causes harm.

If lasers being pointed at aircraft is a problem lets address it with a bit of Police work, lengthy mandatory jail time and heavy fines.

That's a good aspiration, but the reality is that to catch the perpetrators is almost impossible, due to the speed with which the offence can occur, and the distances involved. An aircraft in the air is hit by a laser, and to respond to that requires the aircraft to make a timely report, which may not be possible due to the pressures of actually flying the thing, and there then has to be a response from the police on the ground, and the harsh reality is that to find the person who carried out the act is going to be pretty much a matter of luck, for all sorts of reasons. Getting an accurate ground location is the first problem, taking the recent Heathrow incident as an example to base this on, a report of a laser attack on an aircraft from "Windsor" isn't going to make it easy to find the offender.

If the aircraft can say "Oakley Green", (and I've used google maps to find an area, there's no indication that this is the area implicated) which in 99% of cases they won't be able to, that helps, but to catch the perpetrator, it needs an airborne police unit (or surveillance drone) to be in the air and able to get detailed close in imagery of the area of origination, which will be incredibly expensive to do, and even if they can get that level of detail, to then bring in ground resources to apprehend the offender is going to require more luck in terms of location and availability. There's also the problem of airspace conflicts to consider, putting a drone or helicopter into the active departure profile of a place like Heathrow will be horribly complex to coordinate with ATC, and could cause all manner of problems with separation and possible TCAS alerts.

There is nothing in the aircraft to assist the crew in giving an accurate location on the ground, and the reality is that during the departure phase of a flight, the crew already have more than enough aviation related work to do to ensure a safe operation.

Unfortunately, the likely change that will solve this problem will be for the manufacturers to design a window glass that is a barrier to laser penetration , but that will be incredibly expensive to do, and take a considerable time period to implement, as the tests to ensure that the change won't cause problems in other areas will be lengthy.

So, unfortunately, the relatively quick solution is to make access to these lasers harder, and classifying them as offensive weapons will be a step in making them harder to sell, or import, which may reduce the street availability of these devices, which is what's needed right now.

Nforce

Spotted this on FB and thought it was apt...

Elemonator

This happened to me when I was training in Weston and it was not nice. All my balance went and my vision blurred. I for one have seen people on the webs claiming that the co-pilot was being a wimp (not so!). It's actually happened to a couple of people in Weston as far as I know.

_Tombstone_

Pope’s plane hit by a laser in Mexico City

Still, laser strikes have become more and more common over the last decade. In 2012, the FBI called laser strikes against airplanes an "epidemic," noting that reported strikes in the US went from 283 in 2005 to about 3,700 in 2012. According to USA Today the Federal Aviation Administration logged a record total of 7,153 laser strikes in the US in 2015 through December 11.