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FBI Investigating Laser Beams Pointed at Aircraft
sakshale writes "In an earlier discussion about Laser Pistols, many people argued about the concept of using them to target pilots of airliners. Apparently the FBI is investigating incidents in Cleveland and Colorado Springs. They issued a warning on December 14th."
More information in this article that may be helpful. I think this is potentially a very serious problem.
it has been mentioned and it is obviously required that the laser track the cockpit. exactly how has the technology to track the COCKPIT of an airliner moving 200+mph. (pilots mention a constant laser light for 10+ seconds)
tracking the plane is one thing, and even that is tough to do if you are talking laser accuracy, but the cockpit? also, this has to be done several miles out, since the cockpit windows don't have much downward view anyway.
outside of military technology, are there any commercial systems that could even do this?
What are the chances of someone being able to even hit the cockpit, let alone the pilot's eyes with a commercial laser pointer from 300m+(ballpark figure, but they'd have to stay hidden) against a moving plane?
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Unfortunately, we have decided to STOP selling these lasers to the general public. Too many people have been doing stupid things with lasers recently, and this product is misunderstood. This laser DOES NOT pose a threat to airplanes or pilots
And what do you want to bet they had a visit from their local FBI field office? Purchase records subpoenaed?
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"115 thousand people died, and you only care about a fucking laser beam? you stupid morons."
I don't think you realize how bad it is -- lots of people actually believe that population needed to be thinned out anyway. It does not help that most Indonesians are muslims, either. You would not believe some of the crap I heard on 12/26.
Interestingly a Russian trawler (actually a spy ship) purportedly did aim a laser at a Canadian military helicopter in 1997. This incident was pretty much brushed under the carpet (just as the recent findings regarding Chinese spying in Canada will undoubtedly be).
One way mirrors on the cockpit windows? Let the Lasers just
I question whether this is a real threat or not. All common laser pointers use laser diodes, which at best can bee columated to a beam a foot or so wide at a half a mile. This virtually eliminates any danger of retinal damage because of how much the beam's power is spread out. The only issue I see is a temporary "flash blindness" like that of getting your picture taken with a flash bulb in use. That's not too far off from getting glare off the hood while driving to work at dawn. If a pilot can't handle that, they have no business flying an airplane.
That being said though, I still agree that giving a pilot a sudden vision obstacle while they are in the critical stages of landing their airplane is dangerous and should be unlawful.
Also I agree with an earlier post here that there is zero risk of a sustained illumination of a cockpit window from someone holding a handheld pointer two miles away aiming at a target moving at upwards of 800mph.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Great. Now all you need is to tie the computer controlling the laser into either a radar or optical system that's tracking the plane. I don't think you can get the integrated system off-the-shelf...
And so suddenly this is bigger than just buying, borrowing, or stealing one piece of gear. It turns into a serious project, and therefore shows much more deliberate, long-term malice on the part of the perpetrator.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/newsletter/20 04/0104d.shtml
he Pentagon inspector general has asked the Navy to consider awarding JW client Lt. Cmdr. Jack Daly (Ret.) a purple heart for injuries he suffered as a result of being shot with a laser by a Russian spy ship. Curiously, however, the Navy to this day maintains Jack's injuries never occurred. And evidence compiled by Judicial Watch suggests the Clinton Administration covered up the attack in order to avoid international conflict.
"Jack Daly certainly deserves a medal for his injury from a hostile force," said JW President Tom Fitton. "For more than six years, the U.S. government has refused to acknowledge an attack of a U.S. serviceman in American waters."
"Lt. Cmdr. Jack Daly (Ret.) was partially blinded by a laser attack. The laser was fired at Daly from the Russian spy ship Kapitan Man in April, 1997, while Daly was on an official reconnaissance mission, flying over the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, WA. During his surveillance, which took place aboard a Canadian military helicopter, Daly felt a flash of brilliant light strike his eyes, causing him to turn away. Later in the day he would experience stinging in his eyes and sharp pains in his head. The next morning he awoke with a small pool of blood in one of his eyes.
Military doctors told Daly that he and his Canadian chopper pilot, Captain Pat Barnes (Ret.), had been shot at with a laser by the Russians. The damage would be permanent.
Rather than standing by their injured military official, however, Clinton Administration officials treated the incident as an inconvenient stumbling block on the path to improved relations with the Russian government and covered it up.
The Kapitan Man was not searched until several days later and only after at least 10 hours advanced warning given to the Russians. Though a thorough search should have taken 2-3 days, U.S. inspectors were aboard for less than 4 hours. Predictably, no evidence was found.
Judicial Watch currently has an appeal pending for Jack Daly against the Far East Shipping Company, the owners of the Kapitan Man."
Is it possible that someone with military experience or some such? Especially considering Colorado Springs. There's six huge and important military installations within about a 5 mile radius of the COS runways. Not to mention that it's easily accessible by the public, probably one of the worst security features (I used to work for Western Pacific Airlines! :O)!!
Interestingly enough, many non-lethal weapons developers are headquartered in the area, to include Jaycor, Loral, and Raytheon. It may be possible that someone or someone's was able to gain access to a Laser Dazzler and is 'having some fun', or causing major trouble. Interesting thought... I saw these on a program on History Channel, and they were pretty amazing, and could possibly result in such things.
Sorry man... the Internet pooped on me.
what are you going to block? 1060nm infrared lasers? green lasers? red? block everything available and you blind the pilots as effectivly as poking their eyes out.
Just FYI for people that may respond to point #3:
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Okay, it would be my guess that someone used a high powered YAG laser or maybe a large DPSS. I seriously doubt this was from a handheld unit.
The beams could make it into the cockpit upon approach I believe.
You have to be an idiot to do such a thing. The "pulsing" factor makes me think it might have been a pulsed YAG system, since many are triggered by flashlamps.
Crazy stuff, and it will make it difficult for those of us into lasers for entertainment.
For a good pic of a YAG on a clear night (this isn't mine):
A flashlamp triggered yag
Argon on foggy night
I have some pics from playing around here:
http://users.757.org/~ethan/pics/lasers/
Don't forget to check out www.linux-laser.org, an opensource linux laser platform. The funny thing is the only major software to use the device so far is for Windows XP.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
The utter ludicrousness of the claims in this article are astounding, mostly in how many people have bought it without any question.
While it's entirely likely "something" occured, the dilution of the story through the press has resulted in something that even a child would find fault in.
1. What constitutes a "laser" in the cockpit? A red dot? not likely at 1.5 miles altitude. Not to mention that the range would be a hypotenuse of the altitude and therefore MUCH farther.
2. The accuracy required to "track" the cockpit of a jet aircraft is astounding. This is the kind of test that prototype military weaponry fails routinly.
3. Assuming a laser was used, tracked accurately...what power output would be required for it to even be noticable? The thing would have to be semi-truck mounted.
Anyone think that maybe, it might be likely that this story has been utterly and completely misrepresented by the press? Or that maybe a drunk pilot noticed a reflection off a stray CD in the cockpit and freaked out? I see stray lights on my walls all the time, never once did I think terrorists were trying to blind me.
Like the Cleveland article said...
Hawk said the laser had to have been fairly sophisticated to track a plane traveling at that altitude.
Am I the only one that has used a green laser for a legitimate purpose? Interestingly enough, that legitimate purpose (which seems to be one of two *only* legitimate purposes) seems to be the only way to carry out such a damaging illegitimate use which is what must have happened here... Someone strapped the laser to the side of a telescope! I do it so that I can use the green light to point at a spot in the sky and then not have to fiddle about finding that spot through the scope. It's just a matter of getting a plane in your sight and turning a knob to keep it locked in (funny that the DMCA can prevent me from telling you how to get around a copyright protection mechanism but I can't be touched for describing how to blind a pilot flying at 8,500 feet).
The other legitimate purpose I mentioned has to do with Pink Floyd and a fog machine... which once again can immediately lead to illegitimate activities.
Direct away from face when opening.
I think that the 'green dot' would have to be from a laser which was up there with the airliner.
If there were much distance between the laser and the cockpit it wouldn't be much of a 'dot' and besides the tracking problem would be huge.
No; this laser must be from another aircraft, probably military.
The question is, what sort of lasers do the military use for painting targets? Green?
Or maybe its just bullshit to start with.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/KillingShot_ 2430Metres.asp
2,430 metres. Ok, so it's only been done once at that distance but think...
The distance away these bad guys that had the laser were was probably 10x what the sniper was. But the sniper shot a man. The laser only had to hit the cockpit which probably has 10x the cross section of a man. No difference there. Even so far.
The sniper had to worry about wind. Wind for over a miles distance, even if it's light at the near end, a breeze could be kicking up at the far end. Then there's the drop of the bullet from gravity over that distance. Lots of problems that all go away when you are talking about lasers, so the laser shot is a *LOT* easier.
The sniper had to hit the target with a (relatively) tiny .50 caliber bullet. The laser beam was probably very wide after traveling several miles. I dont' know what kind of laser was used, but one poster mentioned ' my 2.5' long argon tube beam ends up 1' or more wide at a distance of only 1000 feet or so.' The beam of whatever kind of laser it was could have been extremely wide after several miles.
Much easier to hit the target.
The plane was moving, but at several miles away, if it was moving directly (or close to) at the laser, the number of arc seconds it would move relative to the bad guys would be very few in only 10 seconds or so. Somewhat harder to hit the target, but very doable.
WASHINGTON -- A San Diego-based Navy officer whose eyes were damaged by an apparent laser beam from a suspected Russian spy ship said yesterday he was injured by what was an act of war, terrorism or criminal conduct.
Think of what you said for a little.
A 747 flies at 565 mph or 909 km/h. This is 252 meters *per second*. And as you said, from the ground you barely see it move. You can't just point to it, since a second later your aim will be 252 meters off if you were right under it. Of course really it'd be slower for you due to the angle, but we can assume that the plane isn't at your altitude flying right at you, which is about the only thing that would make cheap aiming possible. The pilot will probably not even notice the laser even if you managed to shine it right into the eye for the tiny fraction of a second it'd be pointing at it.
You need one heck of a system that can to two things. The first one is to aim precisely. That alone would be quite difficult, since it'll need to be capable of making really tiny and precise adjustments. The second one is that it needs some kind of very precise system that would keep it pointing to a moving target. The minimum would be some kind of very good motorized telescope mount, controlled by a computer.
Now, the beam spreading. If your beam spreads noticeably, then it will lose a lot of power by the time it gets to the plane. First of all you have the atmosphere, with all the air and crap floating in it. Second, as the beam spreads it will become a lot less powerful. If the radius of the laser beam doubles, the area becomes 4 times larger. Either your laser has to be insanely powerful to overcome this, or you have to have an insanely good mount and tracking system. And neither of those things looks cheap, easy to get, or move around.
Finally, if did somehow managed to do all of this, wouldn't it be a lot easier to pay some dumb islamic terrorist to shoot it with a rocket? Surely that would be a lot cheaper, less trouble, and less dangerous for you.
As explained in the Ask the Pilot column, this threat is severely over-hyped. The probability of success is so low compared to the risk of detection, that its unlikely that terrorsits would try this tact.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
As far back as 1981, the British Royal Navy tested a top secret weapon system called 'Laser Dazzle Sight,'(LDS). and they used it during the Falklands War where high speed, wave-skipping Argentinean pilots, met a dazzling array of laser beams designed to blind them.
According to this Royal School of Artillery paper 'The most likely choice of lasers for a dazzle weapon would be
Argon (458 - 515 nm, blue/green) or Ne YAG freq doubled(532 nm, green).'
According to the Federation of American Scientists In the 1970's it was claimed that Chinese soldiers were blinded by Soviet-built laser systems during the China-Vietnam war. During the Iran-Iraq War, over 4,000 Iranian soldiers sustained injuries due to Iraqi laser systems. Throughout the 1980's, the Soviet Union were long suspected of directing lasers at US spyplanes. Today anti-personnel laser weapons are inexpensive, sold openly by the Third World, have line-of-sight aiming, and are capable of producing catastrophic results if used against aircrews and sensors in flight.
In 1989 a US-USSR bilateral agreement imposed restrictions on the use of low-energy lasers. In 1989 the International Committee of the Red Cross called for multi-lateral controls.
On 13 October 1995 the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (Protocol IV) was proposed. In 1998 it became international law but Human Rights Watch is concerned that the US is developing Dazzle weapons that do not cause permanent blindness and would circumvent the blinding weapons agreement.
Now while the threat from laser weapons are real, I think the odds are greater that a real terrorist would use a man portable anti-aircraft missle.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I'm assuming the laser used was a large one, not some little pencil laser. A large one could easily be set up on a bipod or tripod mount (think of rifles or large caliber guns on mounts). Sharpshooters can hit things at extreme distance when their guns are properly braced. Snipers have taken out individual people with bullets at well over a miles distance.
Which makes the obvious point:
Why the hell are you going to bother producing a one-of-a-kind "laser rifle" that *MIGHT* blind a pilot when you could just shoot them with an actual rifle?
This article is just another bunch of paranoid "homeland security" bullshit.
Ever look at a plane several miles away that is coming straight or almost straight in your direction? Sometimes it seems like they aren't moving at all. The number of arc seconds they will move in 10 seconds time relative to you is very small. I don't think a gyroscope/mechanical tracker would be necessary.
It's not a question of "arc seconds" it's a question of precision.
Ever try to actually do the math?
Say you want to hit a 5mm target with a 10mm beam from 2km away, that means you need a precision of 2.5 × 10E-09 radians! That's fucking accurate. It's just not something that you're going to be able to build in your garage. There are probably some NASA guys and few spy satellite engineers who might be able to make it happen, but with that level of talent, you may as well just make your own stinger missile.
Life is too short to proofread.
laser weapons nothing. you can accomplish this with a $300 motorized telescope and a slightly powerful green laser pointer/module something about 8mW would easily go 10000 feet.
They're using their grammar skills there.
There is no evidence that that is possible even if you look directly into fairly powerful laser pointers (many milliwatts). In order to harm someone's eyesight in the cockpit of a moving aircraft from miles away, you would need a fairly powerful laser and you would need to aim it accurately. I would guess that there are a lot simpler and cheaper ways to interfere with aircraft operations.
However, even though there is no evidence of actual injury, people still report getting injured by laser pointers all the time. That suggests that there is a kind of fear and hysteria about these devices (maybe caused by too much SciFi) that now seems to be cross-breeding with the terrorism scares.
The ridiculous aspect of the story is due to censorship.
The only way to pick up a laser pointed in an aircraft from the ground is if the aircraft has a missile warning system installed. Most of these have a component which picks up illumination by laser distance/speed measurement equipment.
Officially no US airline carries such thing (Israeli do, British Airways is considering it for some flights). Unofficially - the appearance of the article means that quite a few have it already or plan to do so and are testing equipment. They just do not want to shout about it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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The question is, what sort of lasers do the military use for painting targets? Green?
Infrared.
I know, I got to "fire" one from a USAF F-4D back in the 70's...
Yep, I'm old...
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