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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: 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.