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Couple Busted For Shining Laser At Helicopter
coondoggie sends us to another Network World piece, this one about a couple charged with shining a green laser into the cockpit of a police helicopter. The FBI and the US attorney's office charged the California couple under a federal statute. They could end up paying a $250,000 fine and doing 20 years of jail time. "The complaint states that on November 8, 2007, at about 10:55 p.m., a green laser beam illuminated the cockpit of a Kern County Sheriff's Department helicopter, which was flying at 500 feet during routine patrol in Bakersfield, California. When the light hit the cockpit, it disoriented the Kern County Sheriff's pilot, causing pain and discomfort in his eyes for a couple of hours, the FBI said in a statement."
It was a GREEN laser, which puts out a lot more power than your standard red keychain ornament. One of the advertised uses for a green laser is as a "sky pointer".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
in the eyes, and over 500 ft?
The article didn't seem to indicate what kind of laser they used.
I also wonder how bad they where effected if they where still able to find the laser. That is just a point of curiosity. Certainly shining a laser of any significant power at an aircraft is to be frowned upon. Obviously excluding vehicles of war.
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Are these common laser pointers you find for use on PPT presentations and exercising your cat/dog without moving from the sofa? Or are these more powerful items?
My guess is that it was something like this, but it could have been something more powerful like this. Both are consumer devices, but both are still potentially damaging with sustained exposure.
If it was a consumer device I have a hard time buying it "causing pain and discomfort in his eyes for a couple of hours" so maybe I'm wrong. That or the FBI is exaggerating just a bit.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I don't know much about lasers (or anything, really), but 500 feet through surface-level air has gotta difuse a small laser at least somewhat. Pain and headaches for two hours? Come on! Somebody, puhleeze do the math. That pilot has gotta be lying, no? Or maybe the couple was using the new Lego Laser their son got last Christmas - don't they put out a few gigawatts?
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
So, what if these people were using it 'as advertised', to point to sky objects, and this pilot flew INTO their beam? Is that still a chargeable crime? Do they have to prove intent of these people trying to shine it at the helicopter to cause damage or pain to the pilot?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Higher watt green lasers like this ClassIIIB http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/ can definitely be considered a hazard in the hands of idiots.
Can't they develop cockpit glass that will filter out that particular wavelength?
FWIW... I have a friend who was lasered (is that a word?) during one of his cargo flights. With beam dispersion as it is on consumer-grade devices, you get quite a wide beam at 500+ feet. He described it as the entire cockpit turning green, so he closed his eyes. It would have been fairly easy to look out the window and radio the authorities with the approximate location, but he chose not to. With a powerful enough laser, it could definitely do damage to someones eyes, if not at least cause disorientation - something you definitely don't want when you're flying an aircraft.
In theory, theory always works in practice. In practice, theory rarely works. <><
I'm glad these guys were arrested and I hope they get the book thrown at them.
I was driving along the highway one time at night 2 years ago, and a laser beam was shined into my car. For all you guys that think that the pilot is bullshitting, you guys are idiots. The laser flashed me for a split-second, and even though the laser went through the car windshield or whatever (I'm not sure where it came from) I was totally blinded. I was able to safely pull over, but had I been driving fast or in the middle of traffic, I probably could have easily killed my wife and my two kids. One eye was worse than the other but it got better, but as a precaution, my wife drove the rest of the way, but I was infuriated that this happened, and that some dumbass with a laser pointer could have killed me.
We need laws like that so people who attempt to blind people piloting planes, helicopters, cars, or whatever go to jail and learn a good lesson.
Even shooting a laser through a public space (meaning anywhere outdoors) in the US is considered a misdemeanor. Pointing at a police office is a more serious crime because they may mistake it for a gun.
So while 'sky pointing' is advertised as a feature, it doesn't actually mean that it may be used that way.
Nobody was accidentally killed in this case but it could have been close. For example, compare RIAA fines against murder charges and you begin to realize it's not a level playing field
The thinkgeek.com advertisement says, "Stop worrying about things like mandatory jail time and social isolation and play the intriguing game of SkyTag TM today." It can be read here. http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tracker.shtml How can this couple be held liable for using the product as instructed?
I believe that the reason you can see a green laser beam is because that wavelength of light is not readily absorbed by water molecules in the air, thus some fraction of the beam is reflected. In the case of a red laser, water molecules readily absorb red and infrared light (case in point - if you go scuba diving greater than ~30 ft down, and cut yourself, you bleed green - all the red light from the sun is absorbed by that depth) and thus the beam is less visible.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
That's a good point.
Now I'm going to explain to you how it works in the real world. In the real world, I have no hope of modifying police department policy, even if I did all that. Furthermore, even if I did get official policy changed, pilots have significant discretion to deviate from altitude requirements, and then how do I meausre that he acted in contravention of them? And even if I did file a complaint, using equipment capable of measuring noise, how long until it's acted upon?
ALL because a cop didn't give a damn about the people he's flying over, cause gosh, it's just much more convenient to hover low.
Anyway, I accept that they're going to be conflicting interests between law enforcement that needs to catch people, and the the people who want to avoid cop-related nuisances. That's understandable, and I don't mean to paint the laser-pointer people as 100% justified, sorry if I gave that impression.
It's just that I'm appalled that the cop has to nerve to gripe about those gosh-darn laser-pointing nuisances making it SO hard to fly over them, apparently not even realizing how big a nuisance HE is to them.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Misdemeanor? Are you sure about that?
They're a popular accessory for stargazers, as seen here. Obviously, shining them at people/aircraft is a bad thing, but I didn't think their proper use was illegal.
Sorry, not buying it. The odds of shining a narrow focus beam directly into a pilot's tiny pupils, over a great distance, likely through a floor/door/visor, etc. are just too incredible.
I've got choppers flying around me here and I just can't see it happening. Literally. Who the hell has such good eyesight they can aim a laser that well without something like a telescope, binoculars or a viewfinder? The article doesn't say but if these aids weren't present then I'm simply not believing it.
I know about morons shining these things at planes on final approach but those are people standing directly in the path of planes with the noses down just well enough to provide direct line of sight AND the pilots are looking in their general direction at the landing lights, so it's a bit more plausible - but still hard to believe.
Actually, in the real world you should take the helo's tail number and complain to the FAA. The FAA does go after aircraft that fly too low, community noise complaints are something they take seriously - and that includes bumping heads with local police departments.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I could. When I'm taking pictures with a long telephoto lens on my camera, I can manage to keep the aiming point within a ten-foot circle at three miles. Strap a laser to the camera, and that corresponds to a ten-inch circle at a quarter-mile.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Yes... I fly with them occasionally, and they are very aware of this. We had a call for something serious in a neighborhood next to an outdoor festival -- they purposefully kept away from the festival so that it wouldn't disturb it and wouldn't look like they were monitoring it. I know all the cops who fly in our city (it's just a handful), and they're all very professional. Hope the same's true in your city -- flying the helicopter is a privilege; they don't just stick any bozo in it.
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...which was flying at 500 feet during routine patrol in Bakersfield, California. When the light hit the cockpit, it disoriented the Kern County Sheriff's pilot, causing pain and discomfort in his eyes for a couple of hours... Are they piloting the jet from Wonder Women where the entire craft is invisible? Is there no instrumentation underneath them that would block such a straight line from the shaky hand of the laser holder?This might be a knee-jerk reaction but I'm sorry but I can't say that I believe someone was 'injured' by the laser with the information here.
~ Throws down a crudely welded sign that says 'Plausible'
~ Ron Fitzgerald
I mean, if you light up an aircraft 500-1000ft up in the air, and you turn off the light and walk/run out of the area, how the hell are they going to find and PROVE it was you that did this??
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I got a shotgun for $40. Since it was so cheap, are you cool with me shooting at you? BTW, if you walk up to an airplane and sabotage it, you have committed a federal offense that has a penalty ranging up to DEATH if you end up killing someone. Sabotaging the flight crew shoud be equivalent IMHO as a pilot.
I find it a travesty that (as it appears) the law enforcement helicopters do NOT have similar protection that US military pilots have as regards gold or other lamination of the cockpits.
Also, some (I don't know about this Kern County's) police and other LE helicopters have stabilized cameras, heat searching lenses, and other optics gizmos. If THIS helo had them, and he used these capabilities to zero in on them, and then fixated with his own eyes instead of viewing via the "glass cockpit" repeaters, then he might want to think about that the next time he flies out -- assuming he retains his vision certification.
It IS illegal in many areas to point laser in any kind of manner (menacing or not) into traffic because only a few years ago reckless teens and adults pointed and shined them into the eyes of motorists who then thought they were being targeted by drive-by or hiding shooters. I think those were red pointers, and green seems new (to me) as an offensive activity that gets noticed in cities.
The pilot might have been smarter to localize the origination and then have dispatch send a squad car to sneak up on them. The pilot had no business dwelling his vision directly for so long considering that he MIGHT have become disoriented and crash his machine onto population.
Once the harmful lasing occurred, he should have (if it were possible) trained his thermal optics gear to lock on and stabilize his hover, or fly a stealthy pattern to not tip off the laser pointers that he was teasing them to delay their quitting before getting apprehended.
Of course, I'm only quarterbacking.
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I'd hope they'd get the upper end of the punishment spectrum at least.
Its pretty dangerous and examples need to be set.
Over here in Australia there are idiots who do it to aircraft which are landing.
No one has crashed yet but its only a matter of time.
We had this guy on our ship. A real "shipwreck" if there ever was one. He got the idea to paint the officer of the deck on the ship next to us with his laser pointer. Said officer of the deck was wearing his summer whites, and this brilliant red dot blooms on his chest. It was amazing! The OOD dropped to the deck, drew his side arm and began shouting "SNIPER ON THE PIER! SNIPER ON THE PIER!" Their ship went to security alert, the security teams were deployed and began fanning out on the ship and the pier, and then OUR ship went to security alert. By the time it all got sorted out, Seaman Shipwreck had been hauled off to the brig and later had himself the Big Chicken Dinner (Bad Conduct Discharge). So yeah, firing lasers at official vehicles, ships or planes is a good way to earn yourself a Darwin Award, either by measure of return fire or being put in prison long enough for it to no longer matter.
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Flying over Champaign-Urbana in Illinois, there are frequent NOTAMS due to University of Illinois' engineering department doing night laser experiments.
But remember: the cop COULD also be playing it up becaue "oooh! somebody did something illegal against a _cop_!". He can (and probably is) play it up big-time and who's to gainsay him? Certainly not his supervisors, or brother union-thugs.
For all the PR & sympathy it'll generate for those 'oh-so-noble guardians of our lives' I'n sure his supers won't mind him faking some worker's-comp time for a month or so.
Most cops are liars who can, and do, use the law against their perceived enemies because the courts won't forbid them.
I'll order an array of those for my dark, gothic castle tower, then. Shine it over the villagers! They'll never know why it hurts so much to glance at my evil castle, they'll just know that overly curious people are punished with an unnatural blindness. Serves them right!
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