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A Virgin Atlantic flight from London's Heathrow Airport destined for New York was forced to return following a "laser beam incident":
A flight heading to New York turned back to London Heathrow Airport after a "laser beam incident", Virgin Atlantic has confirmed. A crew member is recorded saying to Irish air traffic control that they had a "medical issue with one of the pilots after a laser incident after take-off". It happened at 20:13 GMT, shortly after take-off, the company said, before flight VS025 returned as a precaution. There were 252 passengers and 15 crew on board. Metropolitan Police tweeted: "Aircraft forced to return to Heathrow after being hit by a laser strike... #laserstrike CAD4."
[...] A new law introduced in 2010 means people could be charged with "shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot".
Janet Alexander, a commercial airline pilot, said shining a laser beam into a cockpit was a very dangerous thing to do. "It's unfortunately becoming an increasingly problematic occurrence. It's very like a lightning strike in that it's very instantaneous, very, very bright light, which is dazzling basically," she said. "And of course if it's targeted in exactly the wrong way you could permanently damage someone's sight."
A total of 414 "laser incidents" in the UK were reported to the Civil Aviation Authority between January and June 2015. The highest number of them was at London Heathrow Airport - 48 were reported during this period. In 2014, there were 1,440 incidents in the UK, with 168 at Heathrow, according to the CAA.
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) has called for lasers to be classified as "offensive weapons" and banned in the UK, following the Virgin Atlantic flight VS025 laser incident. Members cite the frequency of laser incidents and say the 2010 legislation on lasers isn't tough enough.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday February 18 2016, @04:19PM
I don't have a link because it hasn't made the website yet, but some guy in the UK has just been jailed for 20 weeks for shining a laser at a police helicopter.
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) has called for lasers to be classified as "offensive weapons" and banned in the UK
Well that's a bit much. They need to weight it against all the non-threatening, useful uses of laser pointers, such as entertaining yourself when you get to the cinema and the ads haven't even started, or annoying cats.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 18 2016, @04:22PM
If there is a ban, it will just ban all lasers over a certain wattage. For example, the ones used to entertain cats are around 5 mW. 25 mW might be the max for presentation-grade pointers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Thursday February 18 2016, @07:33PM
It'd be absolutely moronic for the British to ban high wattage lasers, as usually the high wattage stuff is needed for doing things like laser beam welding [wikipedia.org], laser hybrid welding [wikipedia.org], laser cutting [wikipedia.org], laser cladding [wikipedia.org], laser spectroscopy [wikipedia.org], laser annealing, laser etching, and a whole slew of other things excluding military applications and being a dick [wikipedia.org]. While we're making stupid bans, since currents above 100mA could become lethal, we should classify devices drawing more than 100mA as weapons.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 18 2016, @07:42PM
I think they can sneak a line into their vellum full of exceptions for industrial uses.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday February 18 2016, @09:29PM
You are right, ban is wrong. However selling these items only to certified users would resolve that issue.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Friday February 19 2016, @03:26AM
You start with a problem. You create a government program to fix it. Now you have 2 problems.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday February 19 2016, @05:04AM
I bet that computers are even more dangerous. However, limiting source code access only to certified users would resolve that issue.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday February 19 2016, @07:16AM
That's your solution to save the other useful applications of lasers for the population.
This is how Australia went [ozlasers.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday February 19 2016, @12:40PM
I was too lazy to write the UK's one-line law for them.
I might buy my green laser today.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday February 18 2016, @05:35PM
I'll just leave this here [google.com].
Don't remember hearing about a crash.
The problem is that the pilots who don't expect the laser tend to over-react.
I'm waiting for someone to start selling $25k adaptive shades for the pilots.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2016, @06:24PM
That's because you won't. This is about effeminate passive aggressive pilots getting into a bitchy mode if they dare see a spot of "laser" light dance around their cockpit for a microsecond. I don't know what's worse, a stupid ignorant teen being stupid and ignorant by shining a laser at a plane, or a lying bastard of a pilot who claims he was BLINDED by a laser pointer at some critical moment of flight just to get attention and make a scene. The odds of someone actually shining a laser pointer into a pilot's eyes from the GROUND are practically nil (think trigonometry, gentlemen, the airplane is above you. How exactly is that beam going to bend to a horizontal direction to make it inside someone's pupil?) even before taking into account how impossible it is to hold one of those dots steady over a distance of a few feet let alone MILES. But hey, the proof is in the pudding. Laser pointers have been around for a good 20 years, and for a good 20 years idiots have been shining them at cars, helicopters and airplanes. Number of air crashes to date due to laser pointers? ZERO. Yeah, let's implement the death penalty for anyone who owns a laser pointer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Foobar Bazbot on Thursday February 18 2016, @07:24PM
I agree with you overall, but you're really quite wrong on the physics.
Typical laser pointers have divergence of about 1mrad, which means that for every 1km of range, the spot grows about 1m in diameter. Your characterisation of this as "a spot of 'laser' light danc[ing] around their cockpit" isn't right, as at likely distances, the spot is about the same size as a whole cockpit window. The dominant perception will be one of flickering as the beam sweeps on and off the window, not one of motion.
Second, regarding the laser having to "bend to a horizontal direction", there's neither bending nor horizontals involved -- cockpit windows are designed to afford good view of the ground, and those diagonal lines of sight work both directions.
The divergence of laser pointers works both ways -- on the one hand, it makes it much more likely that the beam does hit the cockpit windows, but on the other hand, it spreads the power over a larger area than one might expect, reducing the intensity and making the "permanent eye damage" FUD mentioned in TFS totally impossible. (Remember, common laser pointers are limited to single-digit mW power to be safe at short range -- when you spread that power such that the eye can only intercept a thousandth or millionth of it, you're talking uW and nW range, and even "dangerous" 1000mW lasers are reduced to eye-safe mW or uW range.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2016, @07:32PM
cockpit windows are designed to afford good view of the ground
When was the last time you were in a cockpit? This is not true at all, especially in a commercial airliner. While you can see the ground several miles away from an aircraft, you cannot see the ground immediately under the aircraft even if you stand up out of your seat. Also note the body of the aircraft is much wider (and beneath) the cockpit windows [authentic-airliners.de].
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday February 18 2016, @11:14PM
While you can see the ground several miles away from an aircraft
That depends how high you are, don't it?
you cannot see the ground immediately under the aircraft even if you stand up out of your seat.
Good job lasers only work when pointed straight up then, isn't it? Oh, wait...
The forward view through a 747-400 cockpit window lets you look about 20 degrees downward. Side windows likely more.
And even if you can't actually get a direct bead on a pilot's eye, the kind of ridiculously bright lasers we're talking about can still screw with your night vision when they're shone into a darkened cockpit.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2016, @11:50PM
The forward view through a 747-400 cockpit window lets you look about 20 degrees downward.
So calculate 20 degrees from this flight map [bbci.co.uk]. I'm guessing some ship in the middle of the N. Atlantic managed to hit a plane at its cruise altitude of 30,000+ft. How far was the ship from the plane, and how weak was the beam when it hit? Oh ok, let's take a different approach. Apparently the poor pilot received the "injury" about 6-7 miles after leaving LHR, and suffered his "blindness", brave soul, all the way past Ireland before deciding that he absolutely had to turn back because of his injury.
Fortunately we have the log [flightaware.com]. It seems he was cleared up to 11,000 feet initially, climbing at around a pretty standard 2-3000ft/min. He was doing 270 knots which is about 4.5nm per minute. Apparently he was "hit" about 7 miles from the airport, so after about 2 mins. At that point he was at 4,100 ft altitude. Let's ignore the 10 degree pitch due to the climb for a minute. Do you care to figure out how far away that laser had to have been, with your 20% field of view, for him to see it?
As for night vision - while yes it's true that pilots try to conserve their night vision, it's no longer critical. Commercial airlines fly under instrument flight rules (IFR) at night, and the instruments are quite bright enough to see even without night vision. It is absolutely not a critical factor. But either way, the pilot bravely persevered for well over an hour before deciding to turn back. It takes about 6 seconds for night vision to begin to return.
Don't get me wrong. I am much happier to know that some disgruntled pilot, for whatever reason, didn't feel like flying to New York that night and happened upon some excuse to turn his plane around than to read about a suicidal pilot who decided to plunge 400 people into the N. Atlantic. However that doesn't change the fact that he's a lying BASTARD and that the laser "threat" is being blown, once again, out of all proportion.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 19 2016, @12:06AM
I'm guessing some ship in the middle of the N. Atlantic managed to hit a plane at its cruise altitude of 30,000+ft.
That's not what happened.
Oh ok, let's take a different approach. Apparently the poor pilot received the "injury" about 6-7 miles after leaving LHR
So you do know what happened? Why were you talking about the plane getting hit over the Atlantic when you knew that wasn't the caes.
Let's ignore the 10 degree pitch due to the climb for a minute. Do you care to figure out how far away that laser had to have been, with your 20% field of view, for him to see it?
I said the forward view lets you see 20 degrees down. Planes have side windows as well. The view from them is likely wider - I couldn't find numbers, but it's a reasonble assumption - and not affected by climb angle.
Do you care to calculate how far you can shine a laser before it stops being an impediment to vision, bearing in mind that you have no idea how powerful the laser that was actually used was?
However that doesn't change the fact that he's a lying BASTARD and that the laser "threat" is being blown, once again, out of all proportion.
You have no more idea about what actually happened than I do, but you've settled on your conclusion and are assuming that all the other data, even that which you don't have, already fits your conclusion.
For all I know, the pilot could have caught a glancing "blow" from a laser which dazzled him briefly but was worrying enough to cause his blood pressure to increase and give him palpitations - reason enough for turning back a flight. Or his medical condition could ultimately turn out to be completely unrelated. He might have suffered a coincidental detached retina. Who knows? I don't, and nor do you.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @12:31AM
cause his blood pressure to increase and give him palpitations
In which case he should be grounded. Heart problems disqualify you from a private pilot's license, let alone a commercial pilot's license. My conclusion is that I've had laser pointers shined direcly at my eyes by aggressive university lecturers from less than 10 feet away and somehow my eyesight seems to have survived. I think the pilot is a liar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @12:32AM
Detached retina?? Do you think ISIS hit him with a laser canon?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 19 2016, @08:38AM
Learn to read. I said coincidental. Not that I think that's likely; I was merely pointing out that his "medical condition" (about which we have ZERO information) could turn out to be unrelated to the laser.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @04:16PM
So in other words, having NO EFFING IDEA what happened, you threw out a made up medical diagnosis based on NOTHING.
It adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 19 2016, @05:00PM
For god's sake...
I did that precisely to highlight the fact that no-one has any idea what happened.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday February 19 2016, @07:51AM
You have no more idea about what actually happened than I do, but you've settled on your conclusion and are assuming that all the other data, even that which you don't have, already fits your conclusion.
Well he is an Anonymous Coward, after all. What did you expect? Actual information, and reasoned argument?
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Friday February 19 2016, @02:59AM
For kicks, let's come up with actual beam intensity in candela; since automobile headlamps are regulated in candela, this will offer a useful point of comparison.
Let's assume a power of 5mW, wavelength of 555nm, which corresponds to the eye's peak sensitivity, and divergence of 1mrad. (I don't know of any 555nm lasers, but I can't be bothered to look up the lumens/W for the common 532nm green DPSSFD lasers.)
Since the beam is (roughly) circular in cross-section, its area is π/4 * (1 mrad)2, or 8*10-7 sr
At 555nm, the luminous flux is 683lm/W * 5mW = 3.4 lm
The average luminous intensity of the beam is then 3.4 lm / 8*10-7 sr = 4.3*106 cd, but since the beam is not of uniform intensity, the peak intensity will be higher -- let's call it 107 cd for easy figuring.
In comparison, the peak intensity of a single legal high-beam headlamp is generally about 106 cd, more or less. (IIRC 140 000 cd / side in Europe, 75 000 cd /side in the US, but I'm not certain that's current.) Since the inverse-square law applies, this factor of 1000 difference corresponds to a factor of about 30 (square root of 1000) in distance. Thus, an automotive high-beam headlamp viewed from 100m appears as bright as our 5mW green laser viewed from 3km. Of course, if we step up to a 50mW or 500mW laser, we're looking at a distance factor of 100 or 300, respectively.
Now I'm sure the rules for dipping your headlights to low-beam vary widely, but where I live, it's 300 feet (90m) behind a car traveling the same direction, or 500 feet (150m) from an oncoming car; thus at any distance over about 3 miles (5 km), the glare from the laser is less than half (because cars have two headlamps) the glare drivers are required to tolerate from oncoming traffic. Even for distances as close as 1km, it's comparable to getting hit with both high beams at a distance of 50m, and I'm sure inconsiderate or forgetful drivers impose this on other drivers much more than 1440 times per year in the UK, causing much annoyance but little apparent harm, and AFAIK no outcry for new laws.
Certainly, it seems incidents inside 1km (or involving more powerful lasers) could be a real problem -- after all, high beams rarely score a "direct hit" much closer than 50m, as the other car is rapidly exiting the brightest part of the beam, so that's about as high as our scale can meaningfully go. But I really wonder, out of these 1440 reported incidents per year, just how many actually are within this range, and how many are mere annoyances like drivers have to tolerate all the time?
Of course, human vision is very complicated, so I really don't know whether the sudden/flickering nature of a hand-held laser jittering on and off the cockpit windows makes a real difference in dazzling effect, but this comparison at least gives us an approximate way to relate the intensities to personal experience.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Friday February 19 2016, @05:43AM
While I think the issue with lasers is overblown, the danger to pilots is way higher than to drivers. First, a pilot can get disoriented at night even without interference. It's called vertigo. Suddenly brain interprets visual signals wrong, side, up and down mixes, and it takes significant will to believe instruments and if they already way off, to correct. Many people lost their lives this way cause it can hit a pilot of any experience and training. Second, the reason pilots are good at such a complicated task is that almost everything in the task is expected and drilled. A step away from the ordinary creates unreasonable burden. Don't get me wrong, many pilots are actually like to play, but not with a few hundreds people behind. I can continue on and on. Also, a crash never has a single cause. It is always a chain of relatively minor issues. It's in fact true everywhere - if you have your high beam and some hot coffee on your lap your chance of a car crash suddenly become way too high for a comfort. A pilot has a much higher load of events and he can't stop and get himself together on the side. The problem - any problem - is usually triggered by unexpected and no sane pilot would tolerate a laser beam in his eyes on regular flight. In fact even using taxi lights on the ground too much is considered "impolite".
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Friday February 19 2016, @07:05AM
"a single legal high-beam headlamp is generally about 10^6 cd, more or less. (IIRC 140 000 cd / side in Europe,"
Close enough. I think I read 225,000 cd as a maximum for both lights together (EU), the other day. But note that it's the maximum, not the typical value. Probably only achievable with high-end HID lamps.
"but where I live, it's 300 feet (90m) behind a car traveling the same direction, or 500 feet (150m) from an oncoming car."
I'm glad that I don't live there. Here (NL, EU) you are not allowed to use them at any visible distance. As a bicyclist with a 200 cd front lamp (pointing at the road surface) I highly appreciate that most drivers follow the rules, although the misadjusted 3000 cd LED lights of other cyclists are getting annoying these days.
Anyway, the assumption of 5 mW is debatable, given how cheap the 500 mW ones are.
http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/500mw-green-laser.html [aliexpress.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @09:53AM
Anyway, the assumption of 5 mW is debatable, given how cheap the 500 mW ones are.
And how many idiots are pointing wimpy 5mW or lower lasers at planes? Those idiots play with the higher powered ones.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @09:50AM
Many in the airline industry don't like pilots with impaired vision flying their planes, so better to land while the co-pilot is still OK (and doesn't have problems etc) - why risk bad PR if stuff happens (just look at the MH17 and MH370 incidents - people are boycotting MAS even though there's no clear proof yet that MAS or their pilots did anything more wrong than other average airlines/pilots were doing)
From what I gather it's more likely for your eye lenses to focus the light from the laser into a very small hot dot than for them to focus the headlamp light into a very small hot dot - it would be a bigger less hot dot at the back of your retina. So while you could probably get blinded by briefly staring at some headlamps very close, the danger distance drops off far more rapidly than for a laser. Even laser light from reflections might still stay collimated enough to do damage.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hankwang on Thursday February 18 2016, @10:00PM
"Laser pointers have been around for a good 20 years,"
Yes, the 1 mW red ones. Twenty years ago I was a student in a lab with a 500 mW argon laser that drew about 5 kW of electricity and loads of cooling water. Fifteen years ago we had 5 W of green laser light from a solid-state laser in a unit that only drew 1 kW. Nowadays you can buy 500 mW green, hand-held, battery-powered lasers from China for less than $15. Wattages went up and green is much more effective than red for killing night vision.
Note that 200 mW is way into class 3B, which requires key switches and interlock connections in order to be allowed to be sold in the US and EU.
Permanent eye injury is unlikely, though, in the case of a pilot at hundreds of meters distance and high speed.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @01:39AM
I'd argue against even temporary eye injury. Distraction - yes. Annoying - yes. Reason to turn a flight around? No. Of course if some pilot is suffering some aerial form of "road rage", just gets pissed and says "fuck this, I'm not flying" then perhaps his psychological profile needs to be examined. Speaking of dangerous things you realize that human beings can sneeze at almost any time, and there is absolutely no way to keep your eyes open during this process. I'd say sneezing is more dangerous than laser pointers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @09:15AM
I had a friend who got temporarily (well he seemed to be able to see later on) blinded by a laser and he was blind for many minutes and had to hold on his mom to walk about. And this was from some laser light show and not from some 5W thing in China that too many kids and adults treat as toys.
(Score: 3, Touché) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday February 18 2016, @10:52PM
(think trigonometry, gentlemen, the airplane is above you. How exactly is that beam going to bend to a horizontal direction to make it inside someone's pupil?)
Think about a plane's windows, dumbass. The ground is not invisible from the pilot's seat.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday February 18 2016, @06:00PM
He advised carving the word "BULLSHIT" into a piece of aluminum foil then placing it over the end of a flashlight. I don't think it would really work unless you also included a projection lens.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2016, @06:16PM
> some guy in the UK has just been jailed for 20 weeks for shining a laser at a police helicopter.
In this AC's opinion that punishment is just about right. Out of the more than 8000 incidents of laser illuminations there have been no cases of any accidents. So the punishment there seems to fit the crime - enough to be a deterrent, but not enough to ruin a man's life.
Long term I think the solution will be externally mounted cameras and either VR headsets for the pilots or a replacement of cockpit windows with video displays that mimic windows. It is just orders of magnitude more feasible to protect the planes than it is to control millions of drunk dumbasses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2016, @09:11PM
What exactly is an "offensive weapon". The summary just uses that term without explaining it for non-British readers that aren't familiar with British laws..
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday February 18 2016, @11:42PM
According to Monty Python it includes shields.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @05:41AM
Ballistic Missile Defense Systems (aka "star wars") are considered defensive weapons.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday February 19 2016, @12:28AM
Well that's a bit much. They need to weight it against all the non-threatening, useful uses of laser pointers, such as entertaining yourself when you get to the cinema and the ads haven't even started, or annoying cats.
For USians it's a good move. Get lasers classified as "offensive weapons" and the NRA will have your six (ala https://xkcd.com/504/) [xkcd.com]