10 ms·

WestJet pilot’s eyes struck by laser on flight from Newfoundland to Florida

100 points by avivallssa 7y ago

Retric 7y ago
Burned seems to overstate things as no specific harm was mentioned. Lasers can very quickly cause permanent damage to the eye. But what amounts to ~1 square centimeter target in an aircraft going several hundred miles an hour is likely to be extremely brief. Though distracting and therefore still dangerous.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  I think this goes beyond "overstated" to outright falsehood (assuming, as it appears from the article, that the pilots eyes weren't actually burned). It punches up the headline, so it's almost certainly purposeful.
  - jonhendry18 7y ago
    They're not talking about combustion-type burning. How hard do you think it is to burn (as in tissue burn) the cells on the surface of the retina, given that there is a lens focusing light onto the retina?
    - Retric 7y ago
      That’s not really how eyes work. It’s possible for the laser to be focused. However, it depends on how your eye is focused. This is why you can’t keep objects on the foreground and background focused at the same time.
      - jonhendry18 7y ago
        I'm not sure that matters much, it'd likely still be concentrated on a smaller radius than the pupil, even if it isn't focused to an absolute pinpoint.
        Retric 7y ago
        Not really, if you look at an accurate model of the human eye about half the inner sphere is photoreceptive. Where a much smaller area collects light. It’s a very different model than how cameras work and how most simplified models are shown. Look at the optic nerve on this pic: https://associatedretinaconsultants.com/diagram-of-the-eye/ https://associatedretinaconsultants.com/diagram-of-the-eye/ PS: This is why the blind spot is relatively small even though the optic nerve is 1.5 mm in diameter.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      If they are going to use a colloquial expression like "burn" to describe what the laser is doing to the retina, it ought to give a laymen an approximately correct idea of what is going on. So, "burn" should mean something like "does enough cellular damage to the retina to interfere with vision for days".
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  A 1 square cm target with a lens that focuses light onto the retina.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
markdown 7y ago
Relevant video published a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ
antimatter15 7y ago
Cheap green 523nm lasers are especially dangerous. They are marketed as Class III <5mW, but with a laser power meter they are frequently 30mW-80mW or higher. It's not that 5mW lasers can't cause permanent damage to the retina, but rather that within 200ms the blink reflex will typically kick in and stop continued exposure. Green lasers are typically DPSS diode lasers— which means they have a high power infrared laser diode that passes through a frequency doubling crystal to achieve green. Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex. The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance— the distance at which there's a 50% chance of some minimally detectable permanent lesion on the retina) for a green laser pointer can be hundreds-to-thousands of feet. The (temporary) flashblindness threshold is some multiple of that. Given the distances involved, I'm guessing it's temporary, unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > I'm guessing it's temporary The TV news mentioned the pilot is on suck leave
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - wyred 7y ago
    That sucks.
  - sigkrieger 7y ago
    s/suck/sick
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  It's pretty easy to buy handheld lasers in the several Watt range online for only a few hundred bucks. They're even on eBay, just advertised as way below the actual strength that they are. You look up the actual model number and can figure out their real specs. It wouldn't surprise me if something like this was used here.
emily2749 7y ago
See the video of most dangerous bird and how he killed owner https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/most-dangerous-bird-killed-owner-in-usa.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/most-dangerous-bird-ki... Funny dog driving own car See his video on link below http://bit.ly/2WdSKpA http://bit.ly/2WdSKpA Cute dog going for school like human baby see his cute video I am sure you can't stop laugh http://bit.ly/2Wq6Ynr http://bit.ly/2Wq6Ynr United nation recently showed the real face of india See what they said in report After knowing this I am sure you will hate them if you have soft heart https://youtu.be/oUskNtdWeIY https://youtu.be/oUskNtdWeIY Best way to get rid from face moles with the help of home remedies its easy and simple way You don't need to waste money for this https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/easily-get-rid-from-face-moles-with.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/easily-get-rid-from-fa...
acchow 7y ago
Even without blinking, the plane is quite far away and moving with great speed. How could a laser actually get pointed into someone's eye for more than 0.2s?
- cyberferret 7y ago
  Never had it done to me while flying, but from talking to colleagues, the aircraft windscreen can diffuse the light signal so it is not a pin point anymore, but rather a wide splash of colour. That image in the article (while probably posted for dramatic effect) sounds like what another pilot I've spoken to experienced when a suspected laser was pointed at his cockpit.
  - tashi 7y ago
    Yes, from the pictures it looks like the light diffracts off the glass and fills the cockpit. The plane moves fast but it's also far away, so the angle it changes by relative to the guy with the pointer is small. To follow it, you wouldn't have to move the tip of the pointer more than (if my rough calculations are right) about a centimeter a second.
    - cyberferret 7y ago
      Even a split second of that bright flash is enough to make you lose your night vision and leave dancing squiggles all over your retina. Ever had someone's camera flash go off in a dark room? Now imagine that disorientation and loss of vision when you are in charge of several hundred tonnes of metal, plastic and glass containing 200+ souls hurtling towards ground contact. At that point of the flight, the pilot's eyes are constantly jumping from a methodical scan of internal instruments to the runway and back. Anything that distracts or jeopardises that process can snowball into a big problem. In many ways, the short term effects of a laser pointer pose a far more serious threat to safety.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  This has happened to me while piloting a small plane over oakland. What happens is that the light hits the cockpit front window. That diffuses it throughout the cockpit. It blinds your momentarily. And you lose any and all night adaptation in your eyes. This particularly sucks on moonless nights, and doubly so when you have to look out the window to land.
cyberferret 7y ago
Not an electronics expert at all, but what are the chances of doing routine patrols or setting up checkpoints around airports to 'sniff' for the electromagnetic field emissions that these sorts of devices emit when used? I am presuming that they would have a fairly unique fingerprint that would make them stand out from the usual microwave or infrared noise that most household electronic devices use?
- dTal 7y ago
  Oh, a very distinctive fingerprint! Big powerful EM spike at 564 Terahertz. Trouble is, it comes out in a tight collimated beam... In all seriousness - besides the light, I wouldn't expect any emissions of any kind really. It's a DC battery and a diode. The only oscillator is the laser cavity.
leoh 7y ago
Are there any goggles pilots can wear to protect their eyes in these kinds of situations? Edit: looks like maybe? https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/dp/B009T6RN0G https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pps43 7y ago
  Revision makes it: https://www.revisionmilitary.com/en/eyewear/spectacles/stingerhawk-e25-basic-kit https://www.revisionmilitary.com/en/eyewear/spectacles/sting...
heelix 7y ago
When it does strike the aircraft, it tends to reflect all over and destroy a person's night vision temporarily. Bonus that it (justifiably) can permanently mess up vision on the reflect. I've not been lazed yet, but folks I fly with have when flying GA planes under the bravo shelf. It is a scary thing. Usually turning off the exterior lights is enough to make it stop. The FAA does take this sort of thing very seriously and one of the guys even had the FBI swing through to interview. Pretty sure they call the local cops with the general location info too. God help the person who thinks they were having a funny with a green laser - and finds out the felony may get them 5 years....
- swiley 7y ago
  5 years sounds pretty short for something in the US.
aaron695 7y ago
> WestJet pilot's eyes burned by laser on flight from Newfoundland to Florida Sounds like this would break the laws of physics. Burns from a non military laser, miles in the distance sounds like some serious BS.
bayareanative 7y ago
Shouldn't there be a visual "ShotSpotter" system around airports that can track origins of high-intensity lasers being aimed into the sky around airports?
- skunkworker 7y ago
  Unless you have the right conditions to see the beam emitted there would be no way to detect a laser unless you were near the target.
  - jonhendry18 7y ago
    The green laser pointers are pretty visible, I think.
azinman2 7y ago
I just cannot imagine why someone would do this unless they want to crash a plane... you can’t even see the pilots reaction!
- nitrogen 7y ago
  My guess is that the best case scenario is someone stargazing and pointing out constellations with a laser, then noticing a plane and, without thinking about the consequences, pointing at the plane to show their fellow stargazers "hey, there's a plane".
MagicPropmaker 7y ago
How do they manage to pinpoint the location in these cases? Do airplanes have accurate "dashcams" combined with the exact location and orientation of the aircraft?
- joemi 7y ago
  In the US at least (probably most other places too), aircraft are tracked pretty accurately, so if you know the time it happened and the pilot can give a rough bearing, some triangulation should be possible. Add to that the fact that the area around airports (where such lasering usually occurs) is usually sparsely populated due to people not wanting to live near and airport, and it’s easy to see how it might be possible to narrow it down to a specific address.
  - analog31 7y ago
    One thing about a powerful laser is that it scatters off of dust particles and anything else in the air, including the air itself (Rayleigh scattering). As a result it should produce a faint line in the air that points back to the source.
dba7dba 7y ago
Few interesting stories about aviation and laser 1. While I was reading about the Falkland war's naval action, I learned British warships at one time (70s - 80s ?) were specifically equipped with laser emitters to try to distract jet fighter pilots flying into attack the war ships. This was when some jet fighters still had to fly in close to the warships to attack them. This was mentioned in the book "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Bluejacket Books)", by Adm. Sandy Woodward. 2. Since a few years ago, US air crew members (specifically on low/slow ones like helicopters) flying around the DMZ area in S. Korea are required to wear protective goggles to protect their eyes from laser beams pointed by North Korean soldiers. This apparently happened a few times and so wearing the protective goggle became a requirement for the crews. 3. Few years ago, a man (fisherman ?) was swept out to the sea at night off one of the Hawaiian islands. He was able to stay afloat but unable to swim into shore. When he heard a helicopter searching for him, he pointed a laser beam emitter into the sky. He pointed out into the sky but away from the helicopter. This helped the air crew locate him quickly for the rescue.
- analog31 7y ago
  High power "dazzling" lasers for military use: http://optics.org/news/4/3/46 http://optics.org/news/4/3/46
- ganzuul 7y ago
  I thought using lasers to blind people was a war crime.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Apparently that didn't come into effect until 1998, and wasn't even proposed until 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea... The Falklands War was in 1982. Though maybe general principles would reject any weapon principally designed to maim? That leaves a lot of grey area so understandable that it might need to be spelled out explicitly.
- Already__Taken 7y ago
LeoPanthera 7y ago
Not that I am defending this incident, but this headline is almost certainly a wild exaggeration. From the article: "The flight landed safely a short time later, and the pilot was placed on medical leave, which is routine in such cases." (Emphasis mine.) Unless the laser-wilder is using something ungodly powerful, the pilot would have to stare into the beam and consciously override his blink reflex before damage could occur. It seems unlikely that you could even keep the laser focused on the cockpit for that long, at the speed planes move.
- joemi 7y ago
  The word “blind” can mean either permanent or temporary loss of vision. To that end it does not seem to be an exaggerated headline at all.
  - LeoPanthera 7y ago
    It's the "burn" bit I object to.
    - goodcanadian 7y ago
      It is quite possible that to get burn damage to one's retinas which is why medical leave and evaluation by an ophthalmologist is routine. While I agree that it is not completely clear, I suspect that he did get at least mild damage or the choice of words would have been different.
MithrilTuxedo 7y ago
I couldn't tell from the title, but was rewarded by the read: it happened over Florida. Florida (wo)man strikes again.
inverseCube 7y ago
Hmmm, at 40KM from the runway, I wonder what altitude they were at. It was likely someone on the ground, pretty close to the plane, while it was pretty much overhead. I wonder what the falloff in power is, according to the inverse square law, for a couple of watts of green laser? Something that can burn paper and pop balloons from across the room probably can't do the same at a thousand meters, right? I'm thinking they're out to make an example of someone by overplaying the injury...
rsanheim 7y ago
A Black Rock ranger, Kelli Hoversten, was partially blinded in one eye at Burning Man 2014 (my first burn) when someone in the crowd pointed a laser at her while she working [1]. This was a handheld laser from five years ago, so I'm sure the lasers you can buy for cheap, portable use have only gotten more powerful and dangerous. Since 2014, the org has banned the use of all lasers by any attendee, and any lasers used by art cars are heavily regulated. These things are no joke, and it doesn't take much to permanently blind someone. [1] - https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales-from-the-playa/theres-a-black-dot-in-the-middle-of-everything-i-see/ https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales...
jacquesm 7y ago
I've had this happen to me on a highway near Alkmaar (A9), very annoying and super dangerous, in a car just as much as in a plane. The scariest bit is that is pretty much the exact path the planes take to land at Schiphol airport and I figured maybe the person that did that was bored with trying to hit aircraft and then pointed at the highway instead.
Swivekth18 7y ago
Authorities in all countries need to start dishing out serious penalties including jail time to those playing these games with laser beams. Otherwise, there's going to be a serious crash that could kill 150 or more besides doing major damage if the plane comes down onto a populous area as is likely since these incidents seemed to usually occur near airports.
jamisteven 7y ago
So your telling me that a laser, pointed from the ground, is able to shoot straight up, that far, and then curve AROUND the tip of the airplane and into the cockpit and lock-in to that fast of a moving object? This is absolute nonsense and is not some civilian pointing a damn laser pointer from a residential address. This is either military or some other phenomenon.
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  You haven't ever been in a plane, have you.
chrishatherley 7y ago
Well, i think they word "blinded" was overstated, but could be more accurately compared to the "blinded" you might say when someone has their high-beam lights on as you are driving down the highways and it is hard to see. For starters, the plane was at least 10,000 feet if they are 40 km from airport (that is 3,048m or 3 km). if you take any of those green pen lasers and hold it against your skin for an hour it won't burn it. Now, as the focused point of light gets further away the dot grows in size (lasers are great for keeping the light beam together, but it still spreads). So if the plane was at least 3km directly above you, it wouldn't shoot through the floor. But if it was say 45 degrees above and away, that would be 5 km. (remember, the article said it was 40 km from airport, so it wasn't skimming the roof tops - it would be holding at 3km vertical). So, at 5 kms, the pen laser dot would be huge (diluted). Have a look at this physics article https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.html https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.htm...

100 points by avivallssa 7y ago

Burned seems to overstate things as no specific harm was mentioned. Lasers can very quickly cause permanent damage to the eye. But what amounts to ~1 square centimeter target in an aircraft going several hundred miles an hour is likely to be extremely brief. Though distracting and therefore still dangerous.

jessriedel 7y ago
I think this goes beyond "overstated" to outright falsehood (assuming, as it appears from the article, that the pilots eyes weren't actually burned). It punches up the headline, so it's almost certainly purposeful.
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  They're not talking about combustion-type burning. How hard do you think it is to burn (as in tissue burn) the cells on the surface of the retina, given that there is a lens focusing light onto the retina?
  - Retric 7y ago
    That’s not really how eyes work. It’s possible for the laser to be focused. However, it depends on how your eye is focused. This is why you can’t keep objects on the foreground and background focused at the same time.
    - jonhendry18 7y ago
      I'm not sure that matters much, it'd likely still be concentrated on a smaller radius than the pupil, even if it isn't focused to an absolute pinpoint.
      - Retric 7y ago
        Not really, if you look at an accurate model of the human eye about half the inner sphere is photoreceptive. Where a much smaller area collects light. It’s a very different model than how cameras work and how most simplified models are shown. Look at the optic nerve on this pic: https://associatedretinaconsultants.com/diagram-of-the-eye/ https://associatedretinaconsultants.com/diagram-of-the-eye/ PS: This is why the blind spot is relatively small even though the optic nerve is 1.5 mm in diameter.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    If they are going to use a colloquial expression like "burn" to describe what the laser is doing to the retina, it ought to give a laymen an approximately correct idea of what is going on. So, "burn" should mean something like "does enough cellular damage to the retina to interfere with vision for days".
jonhendry18 7y ago
A 1 square cm target with a lens that focuses light onto the retina.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

markdown 7y ago

Relevant video published a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ

antimatter15 7y ago

Cheap green 523nm lasers are especially dangerous. They are marketed as Class III <5mW, but with a laser power meter they are frequently 30mW-80mW or higher. It's not that 5mW lasers can't cause permanent damage to the retina, but rather that within 200ms the blink reflex will typically kick in and stop continued exposure. Green lasers are typically DPSS diode lasers— which means they have a high power infrared laser diode that passes through a frequency doubling crystal to achieve green. Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex. The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance— the distance at which there's a 50% chance of some minimally detectable permanent lesion on the retina) for a green laser pointer can be hundreds-to-thousands of feet. The (temporary) flashblindness threshold is some multiple of that. Given the distances involved, I'm guessing it's temporary, unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
> I'm guessing it's temporary The TV news mentioned the pilot is on suck leave
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wyred 7y ago
  That sucks.
- sigkrieger 7y ago
  s/suck/sick
CydeWeys 7y ago
It's pretty easy to buy handheld lasers in the several Watt range online for only a few hundred bucks. They're even on eBay, just advertised as way below the actual strength that they are. You look up the actual model number and can figure out their real specs. It wouldn't surprise me if something like this was used here.

emily2749 7y ago

See the video of most dangerous bird and how he killed owner https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/most-dangerous-bird-killed-owner-in-usa.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/most-dangerous-bird-ki... Funny dog driving own car See his video on link below http://bit.ly/2WdSKpA http://bit.ly/2WdSKpA Cute dog going for school like human baby see his cute video I am sure you can't stop laugh http://bit.ly/2Wq6Ynr http://bit.ly/2Wq6Ynr United nation recently showed the real face of india See what they said in report After knowing this I am sure you will hate them if you have soft heart https://youtu.be/oUskNtdWeIY https://youtu.be/oUskNtdWeIY Best way to get rid from face moles with the help of home remedies its easy and simple way You don't need to waste money for this https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/easily-get-rid-from-face-moles-with.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/easily-get-rid-from-fa...

acchow 7y ago

Even without blinking, the plane is quite far away and moving with great speed. How could a laser actually get pointed into someone's eye for more than 0.2s?

cyberferret 7y ago
Never had it done to me while flying, but from talking to colleagues, the aircraft windscreen can diffuse the light signal so it is not a pin point anymore, but rather a wide splash of colour. That image in the article (while probably posted for dramatic effect) sounds like what another pilot I've spoken to experienced when a suspected laser was pointed at his cockpit.
- tashi 7y ago
  Yes, from the pictures it looks like the light diffracts off the glass and fills the cockpit. The plane moves fast but it's also far away, so the angle it changes by relative to the guy with the pointer is small. To follow it, you wouldn't have to move the tip of the pointer more than (if my rough calculations are right) about a centimeter a second.
  - cyberferret 7y ago
    Even a split second of that bright flash is enough to make you lose your night vision and leave dancing squiggles all over your retina. Ever had someone's camera flash go off in a dark room? Now imagine that disorientation and loss of vision when you are in charge of several hundred tonnes of metal, plastic and glass containing 200+ souls hurtling towards ground contact. At that point of the flight, the pilot's eyes are constantly jumping from a methodical scan of internal instruments to the runway and back. Anything that distracts or jeopardises that process can snowball into a big problem. In many ways, the short term effects of a laser pointer pose a far more serious threat to safety.
dmitrygr 7y ago
This has happened to me while piloting a small plane over oakland. What happens is that the light hits the cockpit front window. That diffuses it throughout the cockpit. It blinds your momentarily. And you lose any and all night adaptation in your eyes. This particularly sucks on moonless nights, and doubly so when you have to look out the window to land.

cyberferret 7y ago

Not an electronics expert at all, but what are the chances of doing routine patrols or setting up checkpoints around airports to 'sniff' for the electromagnetic field emissions that these sorts of devices emit when used? I am presuming that they would have a fairly unique fingerprint that would make them stand out from the usual microwave or infrared noise that most household electronic devices use?

dTal 7y ago
Oh, a very distinctive fingerprint! Big powerful EM spike at 564 Terahertz. Trouble is, it comes out in a tight collimated beam... In all seriousness - besides the light, I wouldn't expect any emissions of any kind really. It's a DC battery and a diode. The only oscillator is the laser cavity.

leoh 7y ago

Are there any goggles pilots can wear to protect their eyes in these kinds of situations? Edit: looks like maybe? https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/dp/B009T6RN0G https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pps43 7y ago
Revision makes it: https://www.revisionmilitary.com/en/eyewear/spectacles/stingerhawk-e25-basic-kit https://www.revisionmilitary.com/en/eyewear/spectacles/sting...

heelix 7y ago

When it does strike the aircraft, it tends to reflect all over and destroy a person's night vision temporarily. Bonus that it (justifiably) can permanently mess up vision on the reflect. I've not been lazed yet, but folks I fly with have when flying GA planes under the bravo shelf. It is a scary thing. Usually turning off the exterior lights is enough to make it stop. The FAA does take this sort of thing very seriously and one of the guys even had the FBI swing through to interview. Pretty sure they call the local cops with the general location info too. God help the person who thinks they were having a funny with a green laser - and finds out the felony may get them 5 years....

swiley 7y ago
5 years sounds pretty short for something in the US.

aaron695 7y ago

> WestJet pilot's eyes burned by laser on flight from Newfoundland to Florida Sounds like this would break the laws of physics. Burns from a non military laser, miles in the distance sounds like some serious BS.

bayareanative 7y ago

Shouldn't there be a visual "ShotSpotter" system around airports that can track origins of high-intensity lasers being aimed into the sky around airports?

skunkworker 7y ago
Unless you have the right conditions to see the beam emitted there would be no way to detect a laser unless you were near the target.
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  The green laser pointers are pretty visible, I think.

azinman2 7y ago

I just cannot imagine why someone would do this unless they want to crash a plane... you can’t even see the pilots reaction!

nitrogen 7y ago
My guess is that the best case scenario is someone stargazing and pointing out constellations with a laser, then noticing a plane and, without thinking about the consequences, pointing at the plane to show their fellow stargazers "hey, there's a plane".

MagicPropmaker 7y ago

How do they manage to pinpoint the location in these cases? Do airplanes have accurate "dashcams" combined with the exact location and orientation of the aircraft?

joemi 7y ago
In the US at least (probably most other places too), aircraft are tracked pretty accurately, so if you know the time it happened and the pilot can give a rough bearing, some triangulation should be possible. Add to that the fact that the area around airports (where such lasering usually occurs) is usually sparsely populated due to people not wanting to live near and airport, and it’s easy to see how it might be possible to narrow it down to a specific address.
- analog31 7y ago
  One thing about a powerful laser is that it scatters off of dust particles and anything else in the air, including the air itself (Rayleigh scattering). As a result it should produce a faint line in the air that points back to the source.

dba7dba 7y ago

Few interesting stories about aviation and laser 1. While I was reading about the Falkland war's naval action, I learned British warships at one time (70s - 80s ?) were specifically equipped with laser emitters to try to distract jet fighter pilots flying into attack the war ships. This was when some jet fighters still had to fly in close to the warships to attack them. This was mentioned in the book "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Bluejacket Books)", by Adm. Sandy Woodward. 2. Since a few years ago, US air crew members (specifically on low/slow ones like helicopters) flying around the DMZ area in S. Korea are required to wear protective goggles to protect their eyes from laser beams pointed by North Korean soldiers. This apparently happened a few times and so wearing the protective goggle became a requirement for the crews. 3. Few years ago, a man (fisherman ?) was swept out to the sea at night off one of the Hawaiian islands. He was able to stay afloat but unable to swim into shore. When he heard a helicopter searching for him, he pointed a laser beam emitter into the sky. He pointed out into the sky but away from the helicopter. This helped the air crew locate him quickly for the rescue.

analog31 7y ago
High power "dazzling" lasers for military use: http://optics.org/news/4/3/46 http://optics.org/news/4/3/46
ganzuul 7y ago
I thought using lasers to blind people was a war crime.
- wahern 7y ago
  Apparently that didn't come into effect until 1998, and wasn't even proposed until 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea... The Falklands War was in 1982. Though maybe general principles would reject any weapon principally designed to maim? That leaves a lot of grey area so understandable that it might need to be spelled out explicitly.
Already__Taken 7y ago

LeoPanthera 7y ago

Not that I am defending this incident, but this headline is almost certainly a wild exaggeration. From the article: "The flight landed safely a short time later, and the pilot was placed on medical leave, which is routine in such cases." (Emphasis mine.) Unless the laser-wilder is using something ungodly powerful, the pilot would have to stare into the beam and consciously override his blink reflex before damage could occur. It seems unlikely that you could even keep the laser focused on the cockpit for that long, at the speed planes move.

joemi 7y ago
The word “blind” can mean either permanent or temporary loss of vision. To that end it does not seem to be an exaggerated headline at all.
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  It's the "burn" bit I object to.
  - goodcanadian 7y ago
    It is quite possible that to get burn damage to one's retinas which is why medical leave and evaluation by an ophthalmologist is routine. While I agree that it is not completely clear, I suspect that he did get at least mild damage or the choice of words would have been different.

MithrilTuxedo 7y ago

I couldn't tell from the title, but was rewarded by the read: it happened over Florida. Florida (wo)man strikes again.

inverseCube 7y ago

Hmmm, at 40KM from the runway, I wonder what altitude they were at. It was likely someone on the ground, pretty close to the plane, while it was pretty much overhead. I wonder what the falloff in power is, according to the inverse square law, for a couple of watts of green laser? Something that can burn paper and pop balloons from across the room probably can't do the same at a thousand meters, right? I'm thinking they're out to make an example of someone by overplaying the injury...

rsanheim 7y ago

A Black Rock ranger, Kelli Hoversten, was partially blinded in one eye at Burning Man 2014 (my first burn) when someone in the crowd pointed a laser at her while she working [1]. This was a handheld laser from five years ago, so I'm sure the lasers you can buy for cheap, portable use have only gotten more powerful and dangerous. Since 2014, the org has banned the use of all lasers by any attendee, and any lasers used by art cars are heavily regulated. These things are no joke, and it doesn't take much to permanently blind someone. [1] - https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales-from-the-playa/theres-a-black-dot-in-the-middle-of-everything-i-see/ https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales...

jacquesm 7y ago

I've had this happen to me on a highway near Alkmaar (A9), very annoying and super dangerous, in a car just as much as in a plane. The scariest bit is that is pretty much the exact path the planes take to land at Schiphol airport and I figured maybe the person that did that was bored with trying to hit aircraft and then pointed at the highway instead.

Swivekth18 7y ago

Authorities in all countries need to start dishing out serious penalties including jail time to those playing these games with laser beams. Otherwise, there's going to be a serious crash that could kill 150 or more besides doing major damage if the plane comes down onto a populous area as is likely since these incidents seemed to usually occur near airports.

jamisteven 7y ago

So your telling me that a laser, pointed from the ground, is able to shoot straight up, that far, and then curve AROUND the tip of the airplane and into the cockpit and lock-in to that fast of a moving object? This is absolute nonsense and is not some civilian pointing a damn laser pointer from a residential address. This is either military or some other phenomenon.

jonhendry18 7y ago
You haven't ever been in a plane, have you.

chrishatherley 7y ago

Well, i think they word "blinded" was overstated, but could be more accurately compared to the "blinded" you might say when someone has their high-beam lights on as you are driving down the highways and it is hard to see. For starters, the plane was at least 10,000 feet if they are 40 km from airport (that is 3,048m or 3 km). if you take any of those green pen lasers and hold it against your skin for an hour it won't burn it. Now, as the focused point of light gets further away the dot grows in size (lasers are great for keeping the light beam together, but it still spreads). So if the plane was at least 3km directly above you, it wouldn't shoot through the floor. But if it was say 45 degrees above and away, that would be 5 km. (remember, the article said it was 40 km from airport, so it wasn't skimming the roof tops - it would be holding at 3km vertical). So, at 5 kms, the pen laser dot would be huge (diluted). Have a look at this physics article https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.html https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.htm...