Laser pointer and airliner

[Pawelk198604]

Recently I read that some teenage joker blinding PLL LOT pilots landing at Warsaw Chopin Intenatioanl Airport.

He was arrested and threatened him to eight years in prison for trying to cause a "disaster in road, rail, sea or air"

Our Polish police said that the arrested one man, but like a silly and dangerous jokes happen more and more often, not only in Warsaw, the perpetrator was 35 years, but the majority of perpetrators are teenage boys aged 14-19 years.

I wonder if this type of incidents are actually so dangerous?

[Kryten]

No, of course not. No harm could possibly come from temporarily blinding an airline pilot while they're trying to land.

[Dkmdlb]

To give you a less sarcastic answer, most of the time nothing comes of pointing laser pointers at airplanes. But if the laser is pointed at an eye, it can cause real damage, so there is some risk.

[EdFred]

They sentenced someone to 14 years in prison here for that, and a few others for 2 years.

http://www.fbi.gov/sacramento/press-releases/2014/fresno-laser-striker-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison

[EdFred]

To give you a less sarcastic answer, most of the time nothing comes of pointing laser pointers at airplanes. But if the laser is pointed at an eye, it can cause real damage, so there is some risk.

The problem is when you do hit the plane with the pointer, the beam is generally wide enough to illuminate the whole cockpit. So the risk is higher than you may think.

[Geneborg]

Well, tbh, these cases get blown out of proportion. This happens all the time, and still these laser pointers are not banned. Yes, they can "cause distraction", they don't blind anyone. Its like pilots complaining about solar-farms blinding them, but its more like a bright spot in your view, you simply get distracted, not blinded. Thats not nice, but its not catastrophic.

Putting ppl in jail for YEARS is just way over the top. The cases i followed usually concerned criminals with priors, so basically the use of a laser pointer on a plane was just the last drop in the bucket for the judge to say "you just don't learn, do you".

[EdFred]

Well, tbh, these cases get blown out of proportion. This happens all the time, and still these laser pointers are not banned. Yes, they can "cause distraction", they don't blind anyone. Its like pilots complaining about solar-farms blinding them, but its more like a bright spot in your view, you simply get distracted, not blinded. Thats not nice, but its not catastrophic.

Putting ppl in jail for YEARS is just way over the top. The cases i followed usually concerned criminals with priors, so basically the use of a laser pointer on a plane was just the last drop in the bucket for the judge to say "you just don't learn, do you".

As a pilot, I disagree with your assessment. One of my friends (also a pilot) got hit with one, and while he didn't go permanently blind his vision was severely affected temporarily. And yes, it affected his ability to fly until his vision came back.

[linkxsc]

Well, its night time. Pilots night vision is working in full swing, they are on landing approach and just about to touch down. And bam, temporary blindness. Yeah not very safe. Plus theres always the "is someone trying to shoot at us" factor.

Green/purple surveyer lasers (several orders of magnitude more damaging to your vision than a little $1 red 1 from the gas station) are especially bad.

[Godot]

Dunno how these cases are punished here in germany .... but IMHO hard punishments are understandable .. considering how widespread this bad habit has become (and considering the fact that Laserpointers are a too useful tool to make forbidding them a reasonable move)

[linkxsc]

Also on the note of solar farms.

See theres a big difference between seeing a bright flash during the day, with the ambient light is much brighter, than at night.

Never gonna have that solar farm shiny problem at night. Which is when the majority of these cases happen.

[pxi]

We've had the same thing happening over here with aircraft occasionally, anecdotally I've also heard of people pointing them at motorists too.

[Streetwind]

I support hard punishments for these kinds of things. I mean, this isn't something you can do by accident. There is always the full intent to hit the airliner with the laser. And there is no excuse for full intent. "I didn't know it would be so dangerous" is not an excuse, it's merely an admission that you're mentally unqualified to be handling anything more complex than a wooden spoon.

For children who really aren't mature enough to judge these things properly, the blame goes to the parents for putting a high-class laser (the things used to blind airliners are not your average presentation laser pointers!) in the hands of their immature child, and they should face the consequences.

[Higgs]

ive been nearly blinded on the road just driving around at night by a twit with a laser pointer. If you are stupid enough to point the thing at a pilot who is in control of what could amount to a guided missile with humans on it, you should be sent to gitmo for putting hundreds of lives at risk for a laugh

[montyben101]

This may sound stupid but how do they actually find the people that do it? I mean if it's in the dark and they have a tiny little laser pointer how to they actually find the person that did it?

[linkxsc]

This may sound stupid but how do they actually find the people that do it? I mean if it's in the dark and they have a tiny little laser pointer how to they actually find the person that did it?

They fly around with an omnidrectional camera looking for particularly bright, single wavelength sources. Or at least thats how I figure.

The way I see it. Most of these cases arent just some random kid getting a laser and shining it at a plane. Usually its someone who bought an expensive laser, and is doing it on a regular enough basis. Track them by recient laser sales, flying a helicopter around with cameras trying to spot the source area. That jazz.

[Streetwind]

The airplane cockpit recorder will tell you the exact timestamp the pilot yells out "what the f*beep*!" when he gets hit in the face with a bright green light. You can then correlate that timestamp with the plane telemetry, finding its exact position, heading, pitch etc. This gives you a very limited number of houses within the suitable angle to atually hit into the cockpit. You can further narrow that down by interviewing the pilot ("it came from the left!"). Then determine where windows and balconies face into the right direction. Then check who lives there. Check how many of those who live there are likely to have been home at the time (people who are registered as working fulltime in the next town over are unlikely to be home at 2 PM on a weekday, but their children might be!). And then you can start looking for eyewitness reports, perhaps correlate the incident with similar incidents (if the same person tried to hit multiple flights near a busy airport), and so on and so forth. Eventually you can narrow it down pretty well.

[EdFred]

This may sound stupid but how do they actually find the people that do it? I mean if it's in the dark and they have a tiny little laser pointer how to they actually find the person that did it?

When my buddy got hit he was in his own plane. After his vision recovered (I forgot how long it took to come back to 100%) he was low enough he got on the phone with the police while in the air, and was able to determine what house the guy was at. Because the idiot was dumb enough to keep shining at a circling plane. Cops busted him on the spot. My fried was able to see the beam before it shone directly in his eyes, and could avert his vision.

[Pawelk198604]

I support hard punishments for these kinds of things. I mean, this isn't something you can do by accident. There is always the full intent to hit the airliner with the laser. And there is no excuse for full intent. "I didn't know it would be so dangerous" is not an excuse, it's merely an admission that you're mentally unqualified to be handling anything more complex than a wooden spoon.

For children who really aren't mature enough to judge these things properly, the blame goes to the parents for putting a high-class laser (the things used to blind airliners are not your average presentation laser pointers!) in the hands of their immature child, and they should face the consequences.

high-class laser i thought only army could afford that :-)

As for the rest, you're right, the parents giving any laser device your children are extremely irresponsible, at the end of a small child can damage their vision

[*Aqua*]

Dunno how these cases are punished here in germany .... but IMHO hard punishments are understandable .. considering how widespread this bad habit has become (and considering the fact that Laserpointers are a too useful tool to make forbidding them a reasonable move)

According to §315 StGB they put you in jail for six months to ten years. If you did it on purpose you'll be in jail for at least a year.

[Voidryder]

Well considering how many people might be on a commercial passenger jet, causing even momentary blindness of a pilot while on final approach or landing could end up being tragic. So yeah, harsh punishments.

On a personal note, once while driving at night and stopped at a traffic light I noticed a red laser dot on the head of the person sitting in the passenger seat next to me. Instincts took over (had various types of training in my life) and I slammed their head down (whacking them against the dashboard) while at the same time starting some evasive driving moves. As I manuevered I glimpsed the four teenagers in the car slightly to my rear left laughing their heads off and caught the flash of the laser pen. Let's just say that I changed my tactics from defensive to offensive in those few seconds. Once I had stopped their car about a block or so later, I had a nice heart-to-heart talk with those young gentlemen. Believe I broke their laser pointer if memory serves me. Sadly enough I didn't get a another date with the woman whose forehead I slammed into the dashboard.

So moral of the story: People misusing laser pointers can keep you from getting a second date.

[linkxsc]

We had some kids doing about the same crap a few months ago, they were taking metal "jacks" (maybe they have a proper name) sharpening them, and tossing them into the road under cars, aiming for the tires. They blew the tires on the local unmarked police cruiser. I didnt see any of them for about 3 months after that.

[Higgs]

We had some kids doing about the same crap a few months ago, they were taking metal "jacks" (maybe they have a proper name) sharpening them, and tossing them into the road under cars, aiming for the tires. They blew the tires on the local unmarked police cruiser. I didnt see any of them for about 3 months after that.

what you just described are caltrops:

I myself, as mentioned above, have been hit by a laser at night in the car, and wish I could have found the source. But, yeah, the risk to the people, airborne and on the ground is very real when you blind a pilot with a laser pointer. No penalty is harsh enough for crap like that.

[Streetwind]

high-class laser i thought only army could afford that :-)

Laser classifications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Classification

A typical handheld laser pointer for office presentations is a class 2 laser with no more than one milliwatt of continuous power. It is considered safe because even if you point it directly at someone's eyes, it is impossible to do damage because the blink reflex is fast enough to block the beam in time. You could hurt someone with it if you shone it through magnifying optics though, like a telescope, but that's not really a realistic scenario and even then the damage would probably be limited and heal over time.

Additionally, the damage potential to the human eye specifically depends strongly on the color of the laser. The more the laser tends towards the infrared spectrum, the lower its potential to hurt the eye. Conversely, the more it tends towards the ultraviolet, the more dangerous it becomes. This is why office laser pointers are almost always red. A green laser pointer is more dangerous to the eye at same power; they're rare in comparison to red pointers. And a blue laser is the most dangerous to the human eye; you will never see anyone in an office presentation wave around a blue pointer. It's just irresponsible.

Meanwhile, a 5 mW laser pointer would be rated class 3R, and is enough to cause a bright, blinding flash at 1 km distance that will not hurt but definitely distract a pilot. Lasers between 5 and 500 mW are rated class 3B and can be strong enough to cause temporary loss of vision at multiple kilometers distance.

Now consider that you can buy this legally as a civillian: http://www.wickedlasers.com/arctic

The Spyder III Arctic edition is a class 4+ blue laser available at ratings up to 2 W. Yes, that is two thousand times stronger than what is considered "barely still safe" for a red laser, and it's the worst possible wavelength to use if you care about your vision. In fact, the safety manual of this product cautions that if you turn this laser on without wearing safety googles, you can suffer permanent eye damage just from the reflection of the beam from dust and air molecules. Let me repeat that: this laser will burn your eyes if you look at the beam while it is pointing away from you! If you were to point it at a person - or even casually swipe it across their face with the flick of a wrist - you would permanently blind them on both eyes, instantly. And don't think closing your eyes will help, because a laser of this power will actually burn through human skin under continuous exposure. Among other things - try looking up

, there are plenty. If you pointed this at an aircraft, you're pretty much guaranteed to severely injure both pilots regardless of distance, because by the time this beam dissipates enough to stop being dangerous, you're no longer able to aim with it anyway.

And you do not need a gun license or any special sort of training to be allowed to buy, own and operate this. "It's just a laser pointer", right? Yeah right. Laser weapons are real and available cheaply and unregulated to the common person. And legislation is woefully unaware and behind the times. I wonder what else needs to happen besides aircraft harrassment before governments get a clue.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Streetwind

[shynung]

I wonder what else needs to happen besides aircraft harrassment before governments get a clue.

Uh, this?

This is a ZM-87, a Chinese laser device designed to damage laser rangefinders, cameras, missile seekers, and human eyes. It's no longer in production since 2000 due to a UN protocol on blinding laser weapons, but the few units that are produced have been reported being used by the Russians and North Koreans.

[Pawelk198604]

Lasers?

It's a toy , I want phasers from Star Trek, or better Klingon disruptors