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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: 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.