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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 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]
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(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.