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from the promoting-laser-beams-on-sharks dept.
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 digitalaudiorock on Thursday February 18 2016, @07:34PM
Thank you...glad I'm not just me. I find that it's not just those blue xenon headlights, but also many others that are just WAY to bright. This seems to be especially true for non-U.S. makes. That's been an auto industry arms race that's gone totally unchecked for decades, resulting in nobody being able to see well. What especially pisses me off is that it was all a cure for which there is no known disease. Headlights, and their high beam when necessary, worked fine decades ago.
Around here they used to flunk you for inspection when your lights were a hair to high. They stopped all that, probably in part because SUVs have their headlights at eye level all the time. The worst case for me is when I have something like a Lexus SUV behind me with blazing blue headlights. At that point you pretty much have a night baseball game up your ass. Don't even get me started.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2016, @12:46AM
The only countermeasure for this is dark, dark window tint on your rear window.