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?
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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....
Few interesting stories about aviation and laser<p>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.<p>This was mentioned in the book "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Bluejacket Books)", by Adm. Sandy Woodward.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>[1] - <a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales-from-the-playa/theres-a-black-dot-in-the-middle-of-everything-i-see/" rel="nofollow">https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales...</a>
Not that I am defending this incident, but this headline is almost certainly a wild exaggeration.<p>From the article: "The flight landed safely a short time later, and the pilot was placed on medical leave, <i>which is routine in such cases</i>."<p>(Emphasis mine.)<p>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.
Relevant video published a few days ago: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ</a>
Burned seems to overstate things as no specific harm was mentioned.<p>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.
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 <a href="https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.htm...</a>
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?
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?
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.
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.
Are there any goggles pilots can wear to protect their eyes in these kinds of situations?<p>Edit: looks like maybe? <a href="https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/dp/B009T6RN0G" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/...</a>
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?
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.