Slashdot Mirror
FBI: $10,000 Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At an Aircraft
coondoggie writes "Here's a good idea: The FBI has launched a targeted, 60-day program that will offer up to a $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft. The FBI said the laser-pointing scourge continues to grow at an alarming rate. Since the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration began tracking laser strikes in 2005, there has been ridiculous 1,000% increase in the number of laser pointing/aircraft incidents. Last year, 3,960 laser strikes against aircraft were reported — an average of almost 11 incidents per day."
The laser incidents are so numerous that it will be impossible to deal with the problem by prosecutions. It seems to me that a problem that cannot be solved by stopping the perpetrators needs to be solved a different way, such as designing planes to not be vulnerable to the lasers.
The purpose of the windows in the aircraft is to let light in... not to let it out.
No, this is the right approach. Every time you caught someone pointing a laser pointer to a plane, fine the idiot to bankruptcy to cover the rewards and potential damages to the crew, then throw some terrorism charges and lock them behind bars for 20 years and the number of incidents WILL get down.
The issue here is idiots failing to understand the consequences of their actions and the potential damages they can cause. A harsh punishment will raise awareness on the problem and once enough awareness is achieved incidents will go down. Not to mention that finding and disposing of morons will potentially become a booming industry and we all benefit from finding and disposing of morons (even temporarily).
I think you could say the same about kids playing with matches.
I do not wear sunglasses when landing at night.
Okay, so an el-cheapo red laser pointer at a range of 500 ft (Aircraft on approach).
Daylight - Can the pilot even see it?
Night time. At 500 feet, is it even as bright as his instrument lights? Between dust and moisture vapor is the beam even still anywhere close to focused?
Yeah, I know people can go and by multi-watt green lasers that can pop balloons from 100 yards. But to say that an el-cheapo red light wielded with harmless intent should be subject to the same penalties as a multi-watt laser wielded with intent to disrupt/harm seems to be going the whole zero-tolerance BS route.
I'm curious. Has anyone ever actually caused harm in US airspace with a laser pointer yet? Or are we creating a crime around something that has never caused harm?
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
1) Own a Cessna.
2) Aim a laser at it in the safety of your hangar.
3) ???
4) Profit!!!
Ezekiel 23:20
What height exactly? The height of an airplane taking off isn't really that high. Who says they're using average laser pointers? A beach I frequent sells those higher powered pointers. Some idiot was waving one around 1/4 to 1/2 mile away on the beach, and when it crossed my eyeball, it was a damned bright FLASH.
You could use the same argument for kitchen knifes and sticking them into people...
Stupidity is not acceptable when it seriously endangers others.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Macintosh obviously.
I think people must be doing this out of boredom. With fun lasers like these people can find more constructive things to do with them.
Indeed. In the place where I live, there is also a growing trend of cretins pointing lasers at ambulance helicopters. Even if the pilot manages a safe emergency landing, this could well kill the person being transported.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What are the rules for pointing a laser pointer at a drone? A drone operating before 500'? 50'?
Parts of Colorado permit the use of firearms, but they should update it to include more modern weapons too.
Cretins are pointing these things at planes that are in the final stage of landing. And yes, at night these are enough to momentarily blind the pilot. Add a gust of wind or some other problem and you have a nice mass-murder.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If they take "dare" you're $1000 richer. Just make sure you videotape them for proof so it can lead to an arrest. I see a potential to make a lot of money and to widdle down the stupid pool all in one shot here...
According to wikipedia it's only a real danger when the aircraft are on final approach and below 4000ft. In this case, the person with the laser should know better and it should be easier to find them. Even kids can imagine it's not good to blind or distract the pilot when they are trying to land. When the plane is cruising at 30k feet, I doubt this is even visible much less a problem.
You are wrong. Also take into account that some cretins use lasers that _can_ blind people permanently for this.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Laser seeking high explosive missiles that are auto launched from the aircraft. Kills some of these idiots and word will get out.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Felony prosecution. 25 years to life. No parole. Must register on the "laser pointing offenders" list. Driver's license suspended. Credit Score cut to one. Automatic bankruptcy. All assets forfeited. House fuel air bombed, bulldozed, soil salted and paved over with pig iron, rocks and low grade cement.
Must stand on a chair and sing the "I AM A VERY BAD PERSON" song while applying for any job. Five million dollar fine paid in equal daily installments for 35 years. Not allowed to date, marry or smile at anyone.
Must appear in at least five television commercials a year (at own expense) to announce "I am a poopy face" while dressed up like a cartoon airplane and being physically kicked in the ass by a sunglasses-wearing security officer with a blinking overlay of name and social security number.
If not 18 yet, then the parents and grandparents are all prosecuted instead.
And no laughing.
I was just coming here to talk about the trend of denying or trivializing the problem by other laser enthusiasts, instead of doing their best to help eliminate the problem that threatens their hobby almost as much as it does the lives of the hundreds of passengers on each plane...thanks for demonstrating it for me.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Perhaps someone from one of the airlines or better still the FAA could demonstrate just how disruptive a laser pointer is to flight operations? At 30,000 feet, I suspect that 2-3mm beam will already be scattered to several feet (with an attendant loss of intensity). On takeoff or final approach somebody might be able to paint the flight deck windows with a laser, but that puts yon numbskull in a very specific place (trespassing on airport property?), subject to monitoring and arrest.
Question - we are detecting all of these laser strikes on commercial aircraft. Have we detected any instances where it has actually posed a significant obstacle to safe flight operations? Not the "oh the red flash distracted me for an instant, we could have crashed!" hysteria, but some real "I was blinded for several seconds requiring the co-pilot to assume command briefly". I'm going to be honest - in my passenger car, those red flashing lights in the rearview mirror really mess with my ability to drive; but it's more than a momentary flash. With a lack of visible feedback, how many people can continuously paint the windshield of a jumbo jet in flight for more than a fraction of a second?
So we should ban green laser pointers, right? Clearly, they're the problem since this wasn't happening when red pointers were all but the only option. No. The problem is that pilots, in the pitch black of night can see beams of green laser pointers off somewhere in the distance. With no useful reference for actual distance and nothing else in the night sky to compare it to, the pilots assume they're very nearby and must be being pointed at them. I have no doubt that some aircraft have had a beam enter the cabin or that some small number of pilots have witnessed a brief flash as a beam quickly crossed one of his or her eyes. That said, this is only now epidemic because pointers with visible beams are commonplace.
Here is a better idea: "don't distract the pilot"
I think it should be more sporting. I think I should get to shoot back.
(Drone operator) yells "I see light." and deploys a Hellfire guided missile to ride the laser beam down to target.
Fade out and roll closing credits.
Wow, I'm gonna get rich at Bonnaroo this year! Every time the damn medical helicopter, photography helicopter, or sheriff's plane goes near the festival grounds, multiple people point green lasers at them. Gotta make sure to get the number of the local FBI field office, I guess. I'm not sure how musicians are never blinded at music festivals, since there are always idiots pointing lasers everywhere.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I was (only for a moment before my conscience decided to get in the way of my greed....) thinking about hiring homeless people to do it....
Some of them after a case of beer probably wouldn't even require further payment.
Maybe find some of those drunken homeless people with only a slim grasp of reality in the first place and tell them that this laser will help fight off the alien invasion, post the video on youtube for some bonus cash.
Get 2 or 3 of them a month and retire after a couple of years.
Sounds like a great money-making scheme to me. Get some drugged up homeless guy convinced it's a space ship and that he'd be helping to shoot it down and then capture the video on your phone for evidence and poof! $10,000!
Yeah, windows that don't allow light to pass through them.
I believe that's called a wall.
> idiots failing to understand the consequences of their actions and the potential damages they can cause
What was the damage? What percentage of the 11 planes fell out of the sky? Are plane hulls vulnerable to lasers? Cat's don't seem to be vulnerable to lasers. Perhaps we should be prosecuting people who point lasers as cats.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Are you really suggesting that across the US, 11 times per day, people are organizing in protest against their societal plight by shining lasers at planes?
Not sure that is the best example. Where I grew (in USA) up one could legally drive by age 14 – car or tractor – on road or off – and those things are more dangerous than lasers.
And what, pray-tell are you basing your assumption that this will work on? Generally this making a harsh example of people theory seems to do little more than justify enforcement budgets and act as an excuse to not solve underlying problems than it does to actually curb the issues it is aimed at.
I guess if you insist on not trying to find a creative solution that deals with the actual problem, foisting the issue off on law enforcement and blaming them for not being harsh or effective enough does effectively solve the issue for anyone who isn't all that interested in solving it.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Care to suggest one?
It's not like there's a technical solution on the laser pointer end, and as long as pilots use windows there isn't one on the plane end. You could try education, but there will always be idiots.
Swift justice will do more to get the word out.
Guns are arbitrarily cheap and getting cheaper. The action of pointing them at a person is arbitrarily easy. The action is motivated by basic human curiosity.
How is any sort of enforcement ever going to stop this behavior?
Shouldn't they be looking at a different solution here?
What did he demonstrate for you? I see nowhere where he denied or trivialized any problem.
that threatens their hobby
It only threatens their hobby if they have an unjust government willing to employ collective punishment or paranoia to achieve whatever goal they wish to achieve.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The only real danger time is take off and landing. And pilots could wear anti-laser glasses at those times.
When a plane is in normal flight it's far too far away and fast moving to have any dangerous effect from a laser. Contrary to popular opinion laser light does diverge.
Think any different? Cite an example of a pilot with eye damage.
Ever heard of collateral damage?
Totally solves the problem until someone realizes how he can not only defeat that but turn it against others with....a mirror or camera and remote control. As an added bonus, the blast should scatter the evidence nicely too.
Care to try again?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I know what all the neighborhood hooligans are getting for Christmas! LASER POINTERS!
I also know what I'll be getting for New Years, $10,000!
It's easy to talk shit when being anonymous and clueless.
Lasers are light, not magic. If you block the laser beam you block its frequency (color) of light. If you block all the possible laser frequencies I'm pretty sure the cockpit isn't going to be nearly as transparent, which is kind of the point of the cockpit. Raising the awareness that this is stupid and dangerous is a perfectly reasonable way to address the problem. A conviction shouldn't ruin someone's life forever but it sure as hell should make them and anyone that hears about it not want to do this.
Here are some better examples of denial and trivialization for you, since you didn't pick up on the common dog-whistle of "modify the planes to be laser-proof instead!"
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
And would it take an unjust government to keep RC planes and unlit towers away from airliners, or just laser pointers?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The State of Texas kills more prisoners than any other. Is their murder rate any lower?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No it will not stop the problem immediately but at least some idiots would stop and the rest will (hopefully) be thrown in jail.
I got a guy busted for shining lasers at aircraft.
I was a passenger on a flight out of O'Hare around dusk one day, and had a window seat. The takeoff was to the west, and we did a 180 turn to the right to head back east for the climbout. Knowing where this would take me, I was looking for Wrigley Field.
And right when we got over Wrigley, some jackass on the roof of one of the bars that you can see behind the bleachers and across the street behind right field when you're watching a Cubs game on TV painted the plane I was in with a BRIGHT green laser. I made my eyes hurt, but I nailed the exact location down to the building because the jackass did it right across the street from a major landmark. And it was deliberate - he tracked the plane with the laser for probably a minute or so.
After the seatbelt sign went off, I got up and told one of the flight attendants, and a few minutes later I was talking to the copilot and telling him EXACTLY where the laser was coming from. I read about it online a while later - idjit in Chicago busted for painting aircraft with lasers.
Where's my $10K?
From TFA: "As of December 2013, the FAA has documented at least 35 incidents where pilots required medical attention after a laser strike."
"Laser seeking high explosive missiles that are auto launched from the aircraft. Kills some of these idiots and word will get out."
First law of laser:
Don't point a laser at an aircraft.
" Ever heard of collateral damage?"
Second law of laser:
Don't stand near somebody who is pointing a laser at an aircraft.
If they're adult males, they're called "suspected militants."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
they should authorize jets to carry laser guided bombs
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Indeed that would be stupid. But there's no reason you shouldn't wear anti-laser glasses.
If i don't like my black/muslim/spanish/different-in-some-way neighbors, or the boyfriend of the girl i want, i can just report them as pointing a laser to a passing aircraft. In the worst case i could say that I mistook a keychain for a laser pointer. In the best case, i will get $10.000, and could get rid of that neighbor because he will be victim of authorities/nsa confirmation bias.
And it could work in both ways, if you don't want that nasty redneck falsely accuse you, you can accuse him first. In any case, whats the worst that could happen if you call the police?
No I think he was suggesting that some number of those 11 each day is likely someone pissed off about plane noise in his neigborhood. 11 is a pretty small number compared to both people and flights, it doesn't take much. One pissed off guy could be the cause of those kind of numbers. (though I suspect it would be much easier to solve if that were the case).
11 times a day is easily within the realm of possibility if you have even a moderate/small population of people pissed off an acting out individually. That could easily account for half or more. If one guy went outside once a day, that would be nearly 10% of the whole issue. If everyone who did this did it once a week, you are looking at a population of ~700 people.... in a country of about 300 million.
If it really takes so few, the problem is likely intractable from this end, because there will always be some number of people pissed off about anything.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
No, not quite. Education is a better tool than disproportional punishment. Despite all of the stories and warnings, I have still not seen a video on the effects of lasers from the pilots point of view. People learn from experiencing the consequences, either personal or seeing other people. Telling people not to do something without an explanation isn't going to stop people from doing things.
That laser pointers had anything to do with national security.
Phew, that's a tough one!
Here are some thoughts on the matter.
If you point to stars with a laser [one of the advertized uses of those devices and the only use I would care about if I had one] it might be a tad difficult not to hit a plane by accident from time to time [move your arm by an inch and you cover many miles up there]. Also, the amount of planes these days is ridiculous. Maybe we should accept this minor evil and equip the planes with some filters or something. I don't know, maybe that would be too impractical or pricey. Tough.
Another thought - this ridiculous increase as the article calls it, is maybe partially due to the fact that they are looking for it. Like doctors that define some new condition and suddenly almost every one on the street has it!
On the other hand I fully admit that there are [way too] many morons out there. Just the other day a kid was shining a laser on me while I was cycling in Amsterdam. I saw him from afar and was prepared but so many people would not be.
Sometimes, it's about the right approach indeed :) Let's finish with an anecdote.
A few winters back it was popular in the Netherlands among the youngsters to throw snowballs on cars, buses ect. and cyclists. I think on few occasions some citizens lost their nerves and I think a Russian guy once did something pretty harsh but I don't remember what it was. Anyway, I am coming home with some food from the restaurant, it's very slippery and I barely manage to stay on the bicycle. A group of 4-5 teens hits me with snowballs. I stop, they prepare to run but I told them I just want to talk.
So I tried to explain that in such conditions one hit like this and some elderly chap but also anyone else can fall and badly injure themselves [I've dislocated a shoulder falling from a bicycle and that was the least fun I had in my life so far in terms of pain - it was horrible!]. At the beginning they were listening [or pretending] but once they realized I was not threatening in any way [big mistake] they became arrogant and eventually one of them asked me with a kind of a black American accent, imitating some gangsta persona I guess "So, bro, where are you coming from" [we spoke in English]. I was pissed by their arrogance and foolishness and saw an opportunity. I said with carefully nonchalant tone "Oh, I am just coming from Chechnya; I am a Russian soldier and just finished my service there. In the special forces." Utter silence! Their expressions - priceless! I could almost hear the deflation of their egos. That was a few days after that accident I mentioned above and I do have Slavonic features and can speak Russian if called on my bluff. I hope that at least for a few days they were less idiotic.
In this case it was the parents and the police that were too soft on those idiots. But I don't blame the police. They catch them, report their behavior to the parents and tell them not to do it. We cannot and should not ask anything more from them because on the other hand we know what happens when the police gets to care for your children, don't we?
These lasers are often marketed as "great for sky pointing", and indeed a tour guide used one for that legitimate purpose on my recent trip to Puerto Rico. I am sure there are dumbasses purposely doing this to low-flying aircraft (during take-off, approach and landing), but I wonder if pilots are also reporting lasers that are unintentionally pointed in the vicinity of aircraft during legitimate ground uses. And yes, I will be buying mine before they get banned...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Macintosh...
There is nothing analogous in copyright infringement. Here we are talking about a moron intentionally putting hundred of life in danger for his or hers own amusement. Thats criminal behavior and should be prosecuted in a criminal court and a person that fails to understand something as basic as that SHOULD be locked away were it does not endanger others.
And yes, I'm aware that harsh punishments is sometimes overkill, but in this case is deserved.
I feel like Im getting dumber by reading this thread. Do any of you have anything relevant to the real world to say, or do you want to continue your fantasyland posturing?
http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/9242814.Man_dies_after_yobs_stop_air_ambulance_landing_in_Calne/
The *potential* damage could be a few hundred dead people at the end of a runway. It's not that they're damaging to the eye, they're distracting. When cats start flying aircraft, maybe people will be prosecuted.
Check out the gifs on this page.. I definitely wouldn't want to try landing a plane in that situation.
http://www.laserpointersafety....
Not sure that is the best example. Where I grew (in USA) up one could legally drive by age 14 – car or tractor – on road or off – and those things are more dangerous than lasers.
Not to an airplane.
I mean, I suppose they could drive it on to a runway...
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Here are some better examples of denial and trivialization for you,
I see it in a few of those, but questioning the severity of the situation and the proposed solution isn't the same as denying a problem exists.
since you didn't pick up on the common dog-whistle of "modify the planes to be laser-proof instead!"
That sounds like a solution that takes the reality of the situation into account, rather than pretending that things like this will stop it. I don't know if it's a good solution, but the intent is there.
And would it take an unjust government to keep RC planes and unlit towers away from airliners, or just laser pointers?
It all depends on exactly what you meant. How would it threaten their hobby? What will the government do to threaten it?
Thank you Dave Raggett
"Parts of Colorado" is a truck stop town that tried to make a political statement. It didn't last past the first visit to their lawyer's office.
This people are stupid enough to believe in chemtrail conspiricy theories; and, yes, some of them are stupid enough to shoot lasers at them.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Despite all of the stories and warnings, I have still not seen a video on the effects of lasers from the pilots point of view.
There's one from a police helicopter on youtube somewhere (try Googling it), midway thru the video. The laser light scatters across the windshield like crazy and is pretty distracting. I agree they could do more to dramatize it/educate folks though.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Do you mean provide all pilots with bionic eyes? Sorry, but you are a complete idiot if you think that the danger we are discussing is the structural integrity of the plane, the problem with powerful lasers is that they cause temporary blindness on the pilots and multiple exposures or exposure to higher intensities will produce permanent loss of vision.
If that happens while landing, it could cause the plane to crash and kill everyone in board. Are you willing to accept that risk as a valid consequence of the inane amusement of idiots of your same caliber?
Posting to undo mod mistake
Imagine how high it would be if they didnt ...
In 2013, the murder rate would have been about 13 lower. Source:
http://www.txexecutions.org/stats.asp
(no sig)
Taking the pay someone to snitch approach is novel, but how hard would it be for Johnny A-hole neighbor to point the laser, then point the finger at someone else just to get his 10K.
We can't stop A-holes from doing dumb shit, so here's an idea:
How about putting a special reflective mask/window tint over the cockpit windows that blocks coherent light (aka, the "Frickin' LASERs"). I know this must be rocket science because it hasn't been done. I'm no inventor or I would have done this already, so don't flame me. I'm just putting this out as a suggestion.
With current technology, it would probably be fairly trivial to fire a laser back at any painters in order to blind them and get them to give up. I could see this defensive measure being installed on commercial airliners as a way to stop them.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Is it any of the cheap units professors use, or it is some kind of powerful hobby version?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In the case of unlit towers, it is simply illegal to build a structure over a certain height with no lights on it. For RC planes, they aren't allowed to fly over a certain ceiling altitude or in areas near airports.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For which wavelength?
Perhaps we should start using sensor data as a primary means of navigation and windows (which are normally covered) as an emergency backup. There would be redundant sensors so that even if a couple sensors were temporarily blinded the data visuallization could still happen unimpeded. Of course, at that point, maybe we should just automate the planes completely.
can you cite any reference to anything bad happening from pointing a laser at an aircraft?
really, i'm asking. i've never heard of one.
Would sunglasses be enough?
35 incidents where pilots required medical attention. There's your damage.
There are generally two ways to approach safety.
1) Wait for consequences and then try to fix the cause
2) Identify dangerous situations and fix them before people get hurt
Either approach can be taken too far to the extreme, but in this case there have already been issues and the frequency of the incidents are increasing. I would rather stop the problem before a plane falls out of the sky. At 11 incidents PER DAY, statistics favor something happening.
One could argue that "kids will be kids", but at what point is a kid playing with matches not considered safe. Tools exist and many tools are dangerous and it takes education and awareness to help people know how to use things properly.
Personally, I think they should make an example out of a few of them and have them charged with 200 counts of attempted murder. It would certainly get some awareness to the issue.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
Laser light is collimated and therefore much more dangerous to your retinae.
When the laser hits the glass/plexiglass, it spreads all around the cabin, making it near impossible to see and possibly temporarily blinding the pilot.
It's pretty damn dangerous.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
They know that this will not solve the problem, and are waiting for you to provide them with a creative solution.
Since you haven't gotten around to supplying them with your enlightened solution, they are going to have to move forward with plan B.
Not sure what makes people think there is a magical "them" that come up with solutions, and if everyone sits around taking no action, "them" will come through for "us". Looks to me like the FAA and FBI are taking the stance that magic just isn't going solve this one, so they are trying a tactic, popular or not.\
Do you realize that analogous punishments for copyright infringement have not actually lowered the number of incidents at all?
Because enforcement is so tepid and inconsistent. If you download a movie illegally, do you expect someone to come looking for you?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The *potential* damage could be a few hundred dead people at the end of a runway. It's not that they're damaging to the eye, they're distracting. When cats start flying aircraft, maybe people will be prosecuted.
what about the potential damage of throwing snowballs at cars? very distracting to the driver. should the FBI get involved? turn in your neighbor? i can assure you that the number of snowballs thrown at cars far outweighs the number of laser pointers shined at planes.
we shouldn't be wasting time trying to speculate on potentially harmful actions. we have plenty of real, unquestionable harmful actions to investigate.
p.s., i really hope that between the captain, first officer, and flight engineer, they could avoid crashing the plane in the case of a distracting light.
The problem is that pilots, in the pitch black of night can see beams of green laser pointers off somewhere in the distance. With no useful reference for actual distance and nothing else in the night sky to compare it to, the pilots assume they're very nearby and must be being pointed at them.
No, laser light is very directional, and having it pointed at you during nightime flying is a very definite experience. Search youtube for "helicopter lasers" to see what I mean.
So we should ban green laser pointers, right?
I know you asked sarcastically, but there are "soft-band" options that society may have to consider if the problem grows. For instance, using green lasers for stargazing could be outlawed (e.g., forcing laser makers to not use this as a selling point). Additionally, pen/pointer-shaped form factors could be prohibited. Gun-mounted green lasers could be forced to have a rail switch. Hopefully the laws don't have to go this far though.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
lasers come in different wavelengths. you could get lenses that block all wavelengths. it's called a blindfold.
Not so much.
it's happening 11x per day. where's this mass murder? shouldn't it have happened by now?
yes, and those lasers are illegal. then the issue is that they own illegal lasers, period. really no need to spread mass hysteria encouraging people to report anyone with a laser pointer to the FBI.
Fair enough. Is this seriously endangering others?
To use the cellphone example, if this were seriously endangering others, we should have at least 1 airplane crash a month. So obviously it's not seriously endangering people: Number of airplanes crashed due to laser interference: 0.
How many pilots have been injured by laser pointers? I'm pretty sure we come back with "None."
You should. It'll make your corpse look really cool. :^D
I knew a guy that had a really bright laser pointer. I don't know how powerful it was but it was definitely not your typical weak red dot.
Anyway, he was showing this to me one night back before there was all this talk about laser pointers blinding pilots. He showed me that he could actually point it at the night sky and it made a visible dot, I guess it was reflecting off something or other in the atmosphere.
What I found to be really cool about this is it was a way to actually point out stars and constelations to someone. I know I find it difficult to precisely follow where a finger is pointing to find something in the sky. The laser pointer made it easy!
There were no planes that we could see at that moment. I suppose you never know about ones that are high enough up, it could be possible to miss them. So.. was this dangerous? Is it ok to point out stars this way?
If not then I think airplanes should have blinds and cameras. The pilots could fly by camera. In event of the camera malfunctioning open the blinds.
At first, this whole article sounds like nonsense. But I think I figured out the key mistake here:
...aims a laser at an aircraft
This is about drones!
Surely they don't mean commercial planes. It doesn't make sense that a normal hand-held laser pointer could track a 700mph airplane 30,000 feet away, when it has no ground facing windows.
So do aircraft not take off or land in your part of the world? Most of these incidents are occurring when the planes are on approach to land or right after takeoff. I mean, I live in a "fly over" state but even we have airports.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Unless we're somehow going to regulate laser pointers like guns, it would be far more effective
LOL - yeah, because "gun regulation" in the US has proven *SO* effective at reducing gun crimes! Training an army of ninja squirrels to steal laser pointers from kids would be cheaper and more effective...
Bionic eyes could work, but I was thinking more along the lines of protective eyewear that would filter out the intense light, or dull it enough that it does not blind the pilot. To be worn during takeoff and landing only would be most practical, but that's just my inexperienced opinion.
1. Have some sucker point a laser at a plane. 2. Turn them in 3. Profit!!!
1. Kids that throw snowballs at cars are often reported to the police.
is the FBI making pleas to the public to report snow ball throwers? and btw, if you do report snow ball throwers to the police, you are an idiot and you are wasting our tax dollars.
2. Since when has a snowball temporarily or permanently blinded a driver.
a snow ball couldn't occlude the windshield of a car? seems pretty likely to me.
3. Since when is a driver hauling around hundreds of passengers?
by that logic then, pointing a laser at light aircraft shouldn't be reported to the FBI right?
also, you need to consider the overall potential for mayhem and murder. there's a lot more kids throwing snowballs each day (well, in the winter) than there is laser pointers. also consider not only the driver, but the kids along side the road sledding. won't someone think of the children?
Given how bad the economy has been for lower wage earners, it might be tempting to "confess" after one's spouse or loved one "informs" the FBI just to claim the $10k prize. 2-3 years in prison with with heat and A/C, soft beds, warm blankets, 1 hour of outdoor recreation each day, free health care for even the most expensive medical conditions, a public defender to advocate for early release or to appeal a conviction, job training programs, GED classes, fitness facilities, job programs to earn cash and rewards while in prison, networking opportunities to line up shady "opportunities" after getting out, cable TV for good behavior, the chance to join a gang that "has your back" for life - this all might sound like a good deal to many, not entirely unlike those desperadoes in the UK who would steal a loaf of breed just at the chance of winning an all expense paid trip to Australia, far, far away from their creditors and ex-wives back home in cold and foggy London.
Of course the thing about justice is, does the punishment fit the crime?
I mean, I suppose you could go ahead and get all medieval about this, but what exactly happens when someone points a laser pointer at an aircraft? We're talking laser pointers, right? Not industrial lasers that can cut through stuff, right? Not sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads? Laser pointers, they don't seem like that big of a threat. They're not very precise either, so...
Are we talking about knocking out navigation, disabling hydraulics, burning a hole through the windows, disrupting communication? Or are we talking about an annoying glare, like at a rave, where the pilot could just look down at her instruments until the plane was out of range?
I bet a hefty fine would work pretty well.
Shouldn't they be looking at a different solution here?
Well, they could equip aircraft with air-to-surface missiles designed to track laser pointers, and allow pilots to legally fire back. But I think a legal solution involving a few public arrests and some public education may be preferable.
That would depend whether that distraction, piled on top of perhaps many others occurring at the same time, led to some important fact being overlooked...
The PD, by the way, will follow up on snowballs. People have been killed from snowballs (or ice) hurled from overpasses causing car accidents on major thoroughfares. That in fact IS worth prosecuting. That is REAL harm.
Also, red herring comparison in the sense that the average pilot of an airliner having a mishap means way more involved parties than just himself or himself and a couple of friends/relatives as is the car case. It can involve hundreds of people. If you were wanting to compare packed buses and snowball/rock chuckers or tanker tractor trailer combos, then maybe you'd be closer to an accurate comparison.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
feathers is the right idea but you are going the wrong way.
Put them in a White Swan tutu Costume and post a video (with them doing poses and such) to a section of Youtube.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Also note that not all laser pointers are the same. The little laser pointer you play with your cat is available in much larger versions with a much stronger emitter. Those can do lasting eye damage fairly fast.
What's a pilot's eyesight worth? I'd say millions, given a lost career at the annual pay rate of a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot's salary, not counting the human cost. So if people can cause this sort of damage with these pointers, why is it not worth pursuing?
I'm all for hardening up the planes with appropriate countermeasures.
Frankly, being a bit mean, I'd be okay with a back-trace and counter-measure system... but then I'm a big believer in the effect of effective self-defense. Yes, deterrence from splattering one idiot may not stop every idiot. But it will have stopped that idiot. Even if all it did was lase them back with a strong laser pointer.... (okay that's a bad idea and I know it, but I hate the attitude that some people have that these kind of crappy pranks are somehow okay for kids to be pulling (or adults)... stupidity SHOULD be painful....)
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
1. Find "80-IQ drooling moron to point a laser at an aircraft"
2. Give them a laser pointer
3. Show them an airplane
4. Profit ~ $10,000
The 'murican dream.
well then folks should stop putting Houses on the glide path foot print of an airport (or sound proof the houses).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
> For which wavelength?
~532nm.
99.9% of these cases involve the cheapo frequency doubled greenies. All the other colors are significantly more expensive for the power levels that are dangerous to pilots and are thus both exponentially more rare and much more likely to be owned by people who know better than to do stupid shit with them.
There is no theoretically perfect solution, but there is a practical solution.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
is the FBI making pleas to the public to report snow ball throwers?
I believe the FBI has jurisdiction over aircraft safety not random local snowball throwing.
a snow ball couldn't occlude the windshield of a car? seems pretty likely to me.
Not the whole windshield and it can be cleared by windshield wipers. Laser dazzle is complete and can last quite a while.
by that logic then, pointing a laser at light aircraft shouldn't be reported to the FBI right?
The first two reasons are enough.
you need to consider the overall potential for mayhem and murder. there's a lot more kids throwing snowballs each day
I really hate these "If you can't control everything we should not control anything" statements. Kids throwing snowballs have a much lower injury potential than laser dazzling pilots.
"Shouldn't they be looking at a different solution here?"
What's wrong with the old system. Tell people they will burn in eternal hell fire if they point a laser at aircraft.
Either that or start a rumour about hairy palms.
Anyone smart enough to know this is BS probably isn't the type to do it in the first place.
Children and morons will be too scared to do it.
And they say religion has no place in modern society.
Has there been a correlated increase in the number of accidents? Probably, not — or TFA would've mentioned it.
Without such, I don't see, how anything draconian can be justified. It is annoying, to be sure, but justice should not be emotional...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Anti laser goggles only work against a limited set of wavelengths, otherwise they would be completely black. You can buy enough different lasers now (I've seen red, green orange, blue and near-UV) that it isn't practical to make goggles that will block them all.
Even if laesrs don't cause eye damage (and I believe they have), they can cause distraction (which is deadly in aircraft - one of the largest causes of accidents), and can prevent the pilot from seeing the instruments .
Lasers do diverge, but there are tricks to shine a collimated laser at a plane and make a really dangerous weapon.
Has that ever happened?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
So do aircraft not take off or land in your part of the world?
In my part of the world, aircraft take off from airports.
They could (see others' comments for technical issues with that), but should they? Or rather, should they have to?
While it might be a reasonable precaution, I don't think that validates turning the tables around. Otherwise you might as well conclude that pilots should don bullet proof vests to deal with the people who discharge a firearm in the direction of a plane taking off/landing.
Obviously that is already covered by other laws. Laser pointer use may or may not be. Regardless, I'm not sure where your stance (if I'm interpreting it correctly) of "attempting to harshly punish those pointing laser pointers at planes, is a bad idea" is coming from.
I guess it depends how hard we are talking. "A handful of people with too much time on their hands" is how many? I mean, even 10,000 or 20,000 people is a drop in the bucket of a population our size. Hell, I wonder how many are people going "hey look at that shooting star over there" "dude that is a plane" "shit".
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I can imagine a worse scenario. Kids daring other kids to point dinky little Class 1 pointers at planes. The pilot won't see it, and even if he did, it wouldn't hurt him, let alone track him with a steady beam long enough to do so. The other kids can report it, and next thing you know you see a bunch of idiots prosecuted by other idiots for doing idiotic, but harmless things.
Meanwhile, the real threat has high powered lasers mounted on tripods with scopes, which they aren't afraid to use if the Black Helicopters fly over their property again.
Under what circumstances will the full $10,000 reward be offered?
I have a powerful laser, and I know where to find a large supply of homeless people (who wouldn't mind a few months in jail if they got a $2,000 check at the end of it).
Sure, you can't repeat this trick in the same area, with the same witnesses, but with a big enough payoff it would be a worthwhile business venture.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
> Looks to me like the FAA and FBI are taking the stance that magic just isn't going solve
> this one, so they are trying a tactic, popular or not.\
This would be one place we disagree, because if they expect this tactic to work, they are indeed hoping for some sort of magic to solve their problem. Seems more like that since no solution is in sight, they are just going to go ahead making busy work for themselves to justify their paychecks.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
what about the potential damage of throwing snowballs at cars? very distracting to the driver. should the FBI get involved?
That is a lot easier to get caught doing, and it could still lead to an accident which the snowball thrower ought to be liable for.
The laser issue is more like throwing a brick at the bus drivers window, or, and I know this is a real stretch, shining a laser at a bus drivers eyes.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
My most demoralising day as a police employee was reading a self-congratulatory intranet news article about how some 20-year-old had been successfully prosecuted and sentenced to a prison term for pointing a laser pointer at a police helicopter. Apparently the judge acknowledged the kid's lack of any previous criminal history and the likelihood that he was just messing about and didn't intend to put anyone in danger, but felt that a message needed to be sent. For goodness' sake If they're that dangerous just fucking ban them, don't ruin someone's life for playing with a toy.
While diode lasers can have fairly polarized output beams, whatever the polarization, all it takes is rotating the laser pointer 90 degrees to turn vertical polarization into horizontal. I have yet to see a laser pointer with the output polarization marked on the body and there is no restriction on how the perp holds it. Even with rotatable polarizers on the glasses pilots could wear, they still have to catch the light in their eye and rotate the polarizer - with a 50/50 chance of turning it initially to let more light through - to minimize the laser light.
The only solution is to start punishing the idiots who do this. Some of the laser pointers available are well over output power limits for the class rating they carry and can cause temporary blindness in a pilot who has dark-adjusted eyes. This generally happens on approach when the nose is low and is the most critical time for a pilot to have every bit of sight available to him or her. People who aim lasers at planes are risking (if not intentionally trying to cause) a crash with very high chances for major loss of life for those both in the plane and on the ground.
Fine the hell out of them. Put them in jail. Ruin their lives. And do it before they kill, injure, and maim innocent people.
handguns are also arbitrarily cheap and getting cheaper. The action of you pointing them at me is arbitrarily easy. The action is motivated by ... (this is where my parroting post this breaks down). How is any sort of law enforcement going to stop you from pointing that gun at me.
Shouldn't I be looking at a different solution here?
Couple quick points:
1) When they're above the clouds, they're relying on instrumentation and autopilot more often than not, and the sun is something they're ready to deal with since they're expecting it.
2) The directed light from a laser can refract to create a veiling glare across the windscreen (i.e. the whole thing looks like it suddenly turns green), making it nearly impossible for the pilot to see anything. Even more damaging, it can also temporarily eliminate a pilot's night vision.
3) The times that a ground-based laser is actually able to hit the windscreen are the times when the plane is under manual control and oftentimes relying on visuals instead of instrumentation, such as takeoff, approach, or landing. As such, cutting off their visuals could have a serious impact on them, and human error in response to sudden and unexpected stimuli also enters the equation, which is particularly dangerous since they are in close proximity to the ground.
I just deviced a plan that incorporates homeless folks, vodka bribes, laser pointers and $10000 profits.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
How are they tracking the "laser strikes"? Are there etch markes down the side of the fusilage? Is there some new fangled piece of equipment that detect over saturation of a specific wavelength?
Same way we track any other crime -- by the incidents reported instead of the greater number of actual occurrences. (I swear, some people can say the dumbest things while trying to make themselves look smarter than others.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
BattleApple posted this earlier in the thread: http://www.laserpointersafety....
I believe the FBI has jurisdiction over aircraft safety not random local snowball throwing.
okay sorry about that. is *anyone* FBI making pleas to the public to report snow ball throwers?
I really hate these "If you can't control everything we should not control anything" statements. Kids throwing snowballs have a much lower injury potential than laser dazzling pilots.
spend your effort on issues that are causing real problem, not hypothetical ones.
Laser dazzle is complete and can last quite a while.
well, snow sightedness can last even longer. see, i can make up fake medical terms as well. search for "laser dazzle" why don't you? you'll get a bunch of references to military grade laser weapons. sort of off topic.
If the equipment on board can detect the laser strikes, can the planes have lasers on board that turn on and point back to the source? I'm pretty sure whoever is down there would look away pretty damn fast.
great story. Thanks.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Does FDA have a mandatory limit on the power emitted by laser pointers?
Yes. Laser products promoted for pointing and demonstration purposes are limited to hazard Class IIIa by FDA regulation.
21 CFR 1040.11(b) and 1040.11(c), limit surveying, leveling, and alignment, and demonstration laser products to Class IIIa. This means that pointers are limited to 5 milliwatts output power in the visible wavelength range from 400 to 710 nanometers. There are also limits for any invisible wavelengths and for short pulses. Pointers may not exceed the accessible emission limits of CDRH Class IIIa or IEC1 Class 3R.
http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-E...
so yes, if you are employing a mounted laser in a scientific or industrial setting, no problem. if you bought a handheld 2w laser from wickedlasers.com and are storing it at your home and you have no reason to own such a device other than "hobby", that's illegal to own.
p.s., wickedlasers.com is out oh HK, so they can ship whatever they want. you can also buy a cell signal scrambler online, and guess what those aren't legal either.
1. most of the people caught pointing green lasers at aircraft have admitted to such.
Seems likely to me. How many people have been caught caught though? A dozen? A few hundred? By God, there's an epidemic of thousands upon thousands of people pointing lasers at aircraft and it's been skyrocketing over the last 3-5 years. (Even though the first readily available and stupidly-cheap red pointers were being sold for a couple of bucks at gas stations and the like 15 years ago.)
2. Yes, you can see the laser even if it isn't pointed directly at the aircraft. but in many cases the pilots report not seeing the pointer but the effects of the lasers on the cockpit windows. Keep in mind for example that over Los Angeles and surrounding areas there are probably at least one first time at night soloing Private Helictoper Pilot every week. If he were to lose sight of the horizon for even a minute or two that helicopter is coming down...
The first part of this statement, for me, only re-afirms my belief that people in general tend to report problems with the most dire, sensationalist spin because they feel like it's more likely to illicit a response. The latter sentence sounds as if you think you're arguing with someone who thinks it's ok for a pilot to have lasers shined into his eyes. For the record, I do not. I only believe the rash of reported incidents is exaggerated by the beam visibility of some non-red (often green) laser pointers.
3. Responsible people wouldn't be point lasers at the sky when they live near busy airports.
Agreed. Though, responsible people also wouldn't put 55W purple HID headlight bulbs into all 6 (low, high, fog) reflector-style housings on the front of their SUVs, nor would they bike around with a 1500 lumen strobe light strapped to their handle bars. Unfortunately, we have a shortage of responsible people.
1. shine 100 lasers at aircraft (which happens every 9 days according to the FBI)
2. throw ten bricks at bus windows
want to bet me on which causes more harm? AFAIK, there are no complaints of injury, damage, or death from a laser pointed at an aircraft.
I think your right. So far none of this has been particularly malicious. However, it shows a viable threat to aircraft and should be handled terminatedly. If a low power level laser that is powered by 2 AAA batteries is capable of messing up the landing sequence of a muti-million dollar plane with hundreds of people on I don't think it should be protected a possible fine. Maybe use cameras for landing. They currently have better fog penetration and can see better at night. A laser wont do any real damage to them and then if there is a problem with the cameras the pilot can always look out the window.
There also needs to be some clarification as to how powerful a pointer you need. A $2 Class 1 isn't going to do it. Naturally though if you want to alarm the public into accusing anyone who pointing a beam of light at something, you can't make exceptions like this. Its too complicated for us simple folk - the same way pot is too strong for us to handle without losing our minds and murdering our families.
One also might wonder what purpose the laser might serve. If its part of a range finder, maybe its someone testing their new hunting/construction gear. Granted, you're not going to do anything with that number, assuming you got one, but the idiot threshold for people trying it is lower than we think by virtue of a coherent/non-crazy reason for pointing a laser at something.
My range finder is a Class 2 laser. I would never point it at aircraft, though its capable of an impressive range of 230 feet. Only an idiot would point that at a helicopter, but they wouldn't need to be a total idiot, nor would they need to have malicious intent.
No, laser light is very directional, and having it pointed at you during nightime flying is a very definite experience. Search youtube for "helicopter lasers" to see what I mean.
I don't need to watch a video because we agree. Lasers are very directional. Having even a low power one pointed into your eyes can be temporarily disabling or even catastrophic if you're doing sensitive work like keeping an aircraft or vehicle under control. I also fully believe that people are doing this. What I don't believe is that, with cheap (sub-$5) red pointers having been readily available for about 15 years, there's only now a sudden jump in occurrences. An explanation that makes far more sense is that with cheap green lasers (which can produce a visible beam) now widely available, pilots are reporting many more instances of "beam sightings" in addition to "direct hits." If a red laser pointer, which generally does not have a visible beam, misses your aircraft, you never know it. If a green one does, perhaps even at a considerable distance, you might still see it and have something to get excited about and report.
So we should ban green laser pointers, right?
I know you asked sarcastically, but there are "soft-band" options that society may have to consider if the problem grows. For instance, using green lasers for stargazing could be outlawed (e.g., forcing laser makers to not use this as a selling point). Additionally, pen/pointer-shaped form factors could be prohibited. Gun-mounted green lasers could be forced to have a rail switch. Hopefully the laws don't have to go this far though.
You made me consider a point I hadn't before and that's that the visibility of green lasers' beams likely encourages people to point them into the night sky. With a red pointer, there's not much visual incentive to do so. I hate it when I make a big long point and then have to consider changing my mind. :)
Someone should invent dye pack armed laser seeking missiles... have a drone fly around an airport, someone uses a laser pointed at a plane, and poof, theyre fluro green, and theres video proof for court... win/win
I should clarify that by range I mean reliable distance reading. You could probably quadruple that distance for the blinding power of the beam itself.
At this point, the episodes of blindness can be controlled though the fact that commercial airliners have a pilot and co-pilot. If one is blinded, the other takes controls. Civil aviation has an extreme hard on for avoiding single points of failure, to the point of forbidding pilots from eating the same item from in-flight menu as to avoid potential of food poisoning taking both pilots out of commission. Then there's the autopilot system on top of it. So no crashes that we know of at this point in time, just some close calls.
The same hard on for safety however dictates that something should be done about the problem. And as someone who would like to keep his eyes healthy for as long as possible, I happen to agree, as those laser pointers are equally present in drunken parties.
I doubt it's that much of a threat but like all remote possibilities it just takes that one time to kill two or three hundred people. Regardless it's reckless endangerment of human life and should be treated as such. I find it hard to believe people do this kind of stupid shit but then I saw a woman with a child in a car seat texting while merging onto I-75 last week. It's amazing more people aren't killed through general stupidity than already are.
The problem is that these are green lasers (very powerful) that cause severe blinding of the pilots in terminal landing phase.
Wikipedia page on the topic is fairly informative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Then I'll be damned if I do it with a measly laser pointer.
:D
I'll go buy 500 of the suckers from Wicked Lasers ( or the highest wattage output I can find ), build these suckers into some crazy array, add a focusing lens to this , paint it green, name it Lazilla, tie it into a passive motion tracking system, mount it on the rooftop and have a grand time pointing it at satellites, the neighbors dog, any aircraft within fifty miles and the FBI helicopters when they show up.
I mean, if you're going to go to jail for something, you may as well try and set the bar up as high as you can
Use smaller shaped explosives, I'm not recommending 1000 pound bunker busters. Jeesh, what kind of madman are you?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you point to stars with a laser [one of the advertized uses of those devices and the only use I would care about if I had one] it might be a tad difficult not to hit a plane by accident from time to time [move your arm by an inch and you cover many miles up there].
It's not that difficult. Aircraft are actually relatively easily identified even by the amateur astronomer; just look for the stars that are moving rapidly across the sky while strobing brightly. Even right next to an airport, the aircraft tend to be miles apart and following specific corridors through the sky. Turn off the pointer and wait a minute if there's a plane in the piece of sky you're interested in. Anyone not capable of that trivial bit of due diligence shouldn't be outside pointing a laser at the sky--and probably shouldn't be trusted with scissors, either.
~Idarubicin
I dont think so because people that point lasers at aircraft have an IQ that is below 90 and pretty much incapable of coming up with a remote control let alone understand how a mirror works.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...should the FBI get involved?
Air safety is a federal responsibility in the United States. That's why the FBI is involved; this is their jurisdiction.
~Idarubicin
Put all of them in the same airplane and point a laser at it.
Indeed. Idiots doing this kind of thing is why they ended up de facto banning laser pointers greater than 1 mW here in Australia (technically, if you had one before the ban, you can keep it, but you require a firearms licence since the pointers are now governed by the same laws that regulate weapons).
For the same reasons as it is difficult to regulate firearms in the US (constitutional rights, porous borders, inconsistent State-level laws), I suspect it would be difficult to regulate high-power laser pointers though, so yeah, not sure what you guys can do that'll actually have some effect, other than harsh enforcement...
it's happening 11x per day. where's this mass murder? shouldn't it have happened by now?
Slashdot poster is bad at statistics. Quelle surprise.
San Francisco (SFO) had about 400,000 aircraft movements last year, but only one passenger jet crash resulting in any loss of life (Asiana Airlines). If we suppose that laser dazzle makes landing ten times more dangerous, and we assume that 1 in 400,000 is the baseline rate of air crashes (it's actually a vast over-estimate; there weren't any other deaths involving passenger jets anywhere else in the U.S. last year) and we assume that all 4000 or so incidents involving laser pointers happened on approach to SFO...
~Idarubicin
The US Government should just accept that because they are no longer follow the constitution, that the people of the United States don't feel like we should follow any laws anymore.
See how it works? You break the law and act like it's okay, we'll break the law and tell you to fuck off.
Be seeing you...
This has already happened. several time. And more powerful lasers are becoming cheaper.
Hell, you can buy a 2000mw laser right now.
You should do what rational and thinking people do when thinking about a subject. Research then form an opinion.
Google:
pilot blinded laser
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What about Single pilot planes? helicopters? During landing an take off there might not be time to correct. Plus, if you had actually looked into it and then thought before your IQ 80 knee jerk reactions would know the some laser with scatter among the entire flight deck, blinding everyone temporarily.
At some point in your life, you should take a course on risk analysis.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
we have plenty of data. 0 accidents caused by "laser dazzle". that's all you need to know math boy.
You forgot the zeroeth law: do not shine laser in remaining eye.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
There have been incidents, and the wikipedia page shows an accurate example of the windscreen being hit by a laser. Many people her thing it would just be a dot someone in the flight deck. What it does is illuminate the entire wind screen, and flight deck.
LASER are getting cheaper, more powerful and widely available. This is a case of forward thinking.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Counter to what many people on ., think, there are many studies showing making things illegal has a real negative impact on usage.
This has been seen over and over again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
False comparison.
Murder is much more broadly defined over all the the qualification to be tried for a death sentence.
However, murders is a bad comparison because the vast majority of murders are a one time crime of passion that aren't very likely to happen again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Education is the betst tool, but I don't consider UP TO 10,000 disproportional.
Did you try looking at this new place called wikipedia? it's hard to find for the slow, so here, i'll help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Yes I'm being an ass, but you deserve it. I mean, clearly you just went off and posted without minimal research.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, you don't want the pilots to see any green from their instrumentation?
Nice.
Think again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A quick google search can find dozens or hundreds of people pointing lasers at helicopters. https://www.google.com/search?...
Fining and/or locking up the people pointing lasers at planes is all well and good, but so far-- at least as far as I'm aware --any such incidents have just been people being jackoffs. And yet pilots getting blinded by lasers, especially on approach and landing, is a real hazard. It's only a matter of time until someone does it 'seriously', like in a coordinated attempt to down a plane.
So why aren't there countermeasures? Protective filters in the windscreen, or special filtering glasses for the pilots, or somesuch? I wonder if there isn't something to be done with liquid crystal and active or passive sensing equipment that could automatically polarize the cockpit windows at the angle required to cut the light down as much as possible. Kind of like those auto-darkening welding masks, but you'd still be able to see through it.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
i never said there were no incidents. i said there are no incidents that resulted in damage or injury. e.g.,
On March 28, 2008, a "coordinated attack" took place using four green laser pointers aimed at six aircraft landing at the Sydney (New South Wales) Australia airport.[39][40] As a result of this attack plus others, a law was proposed in mid-April 2008 in NSW to ban possession of handheld lasers, even "harmless classroom pointers".[41][42] The Australian state of Victoria has reportedly had a similar ban since 1998, but press reports state that it is easy to buy lasers without a permit.[43]
sounds like a pretty extreme example of an attack. no injuries. what do you make of that? no injuries, but now people are restricted from buying even the lowest power lasers.
I expect drones would have way less of a problem with lasers. Not least because we don't need to use the human visible spectrum in a drone's cameras.
I strongly suspect that drones are significantly less susceptible to this problem than human pilots, especially if we go out of our way to develop countermeasures. Eg. we could position cameras in deep "sockets" that narrow the field of view, but also narrow the potential attack radius. Then you can identifiy your attacker's position by the cameras that are *not* operational due to laser interference.
The thing is, we do tell people to stop shooting at the police and you definitely can get rewards for ratting out somebody who shoots at the police.
Wrong. Here's one:
http://www.wfaa.com/news/local...
Sure, his helicopter didn't crash, but either this was 1 accident, or it was worse than an accident, it was deliberate assault, which doesn't help the case.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroo...
Four more people hospitalized and blinded. This one is extra-crazy since it's military "friendlies".
Note also that non-laser light sources have been a problem in the past.
These were two of the first three results for "laser dazzle accidents" (no quotes) -- the other was an allegation that the car accident that lead to Princess Di's death may have been caused by intentional laser dazzle which I don't have the time of patience to follow up on right now.
Ummm...that's...insane. Let's bankrupt a 13 year old who just doesn't know any better.
Here's a better idea. What if airplane manufactures could design their aircraft windshields in such a way as to let in normal light, but reflect high intensity lasers. Hey, that would help in parts of the world where laws like this are totally unenforceable, like international pilots who fly into low and mid income nations.
About 3900 of the laser strikes were actually cops and criminals using their laser-equipped firearms in Newark and Camden.
It is actually a serious problem. A laser hitting the cockpit windshield reflects and temporally blinds the pilot...very dangerous during takeoffs and landings.
That being said, I totally agree with the previous commenter being bat shit crazy. Harsher penalties won't stop the action. You need to fix the plans so they don't have issues when it with lasers.
Night landings are, by their nature, more difficult and more dangerous than daytime landings. Assuming visual conditions, nearly everything is dependent upon being able to continuously see runway lights. About 10 minutes prior to landing, the standard procedure is to dim everything in the cockpit to it's lowest setting. The goal of this is to make sure the pilot's eyes are dilated as much as possible to see the runway lights and land safely.
About 5 years ago, I was landing at Chicago Dupage airport. About 1 mile from the runway threshold and about 500 ft above the ground, I was repeatedly hit by a bright red laser. Immediately after the first bright flash from the laser, I felt like I'd just walked from daylight into a dark room. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see any instruments (Remember, they're all dimmed as low as possible) and the runway lights were suddenly very dim. After the second and third time, I couldn't see the runway lights anymore. My only choice was to add power, pull up and hope that I was still flying straight. I overflew most of the airport and remember finally getting good vision back about the time I was over the subdivision north of the airport. That subdivision is about 3 miles from where it all started. I turned over the subdivision and landed on a perpendicular runway.
I then released a torrent of profanities and considered all of the most painful ways to kill someone if I could ever find the #@(#*$@(#*$@(*##$(@* that hit me with that laser.
I'm all for higher penalties for this crap. It's probably already killed people. We don't know for sure because plane crash victims don't tend to be very talkative.
Aren't ground lasers what laser guided missiles use to target precise locations? A couple example cases of jets equipped with these should get the message across.
ôó
You forgot the part about how cars can just stop. Airplanes cannot. Well not until they hit the ground, which also probably counts more as "blowing the fuck up" than just stopping.
So much for air brakes then, eh? :D
This space unintentionally left blank.
First of all, anyone stupid enough to do this is stupid enough to post about it on Facebook or Twitter so just look there. Second, when someone laser paints a target, the missile can technically hit the target or the source depending on programming of the missile...from an aircraft...just saying (blow up the laser pointer-er)
Illegal to own? No. Read the regs. It is illegal to enter into commerce promoted as a pointing device. There is no law against possessing lasers of any type.
So, you don't want the pilots to see any green from their instrumentation?
Nice.
Think again.
What part of "reflective cockpit windows" do you fail to understand?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No, this is the right approach. Every time you caught someone pointing a laser pointer to a plane, fine the idiot to bankruptcy to cover the rewards and potential damages to the crew, then throw some terrorism charges and lock them behind bars for 20 years and the number of incidents WILL get down.
No, the right approach is obviously to confiscate all of his property, then execute him slowly and painfully in the public square. Better yet, execute him after executing his family and closest friends in front of him. For that matter, death penalty for the slightest infraction. Traffic infraction: death! Littering: death! Late library book: death! Sneeze too loud in public: death! Heck, sneeze too loud at home: death!
Seriously, what is wrong with people and their complete lack of perspective on the harshness of punishments? I
They should just inflate the autopilot.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
> Laser dazzle is complete and can last quite a while.
The pilots and their windows are on the top side of the aircraft. The lasers are pointed to its belly. Can that do any dazzle/harm whatsoever?
I imagine a landing with horizontal lasers would, but while trafficking (likely by autopilot) i doubt that.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
And this is how cool shut gets banned...
There are many reports of pilots being hit in the eyes by lasers.
Pilots can see the ground from the cockpit which mean that a laser from the ground can reach the pilot's eyes. That is called reciprocity. It is during landing that pilots are most vulnerable and have the smallest margin for error.
Photochromic windshield coating. Using an organic photochromic coating, the reaction time is on the order of nanoseconds.
They can paint short duration small back dots on the windshield of the plane, but not really do much else. Two coatings in perpendicular directions, with a separation angle window of about 1/2 the smallest wavelength you care about (which, with a band pass coating for visible light in the mix, means that it can be fixed at a pretty big distance), and the pilot won't even see black spots unless looking directly at the laser through the temporary perpendicularly organized difraction gratings.
It's my understanding that military aircraft already have laser protection due to an aircraft area denial weapons system I suggested back around 1976.
So the only risk factor here, is when the laser points through the windows into the cabin?
What is the risk involved when the laser beam goes vertical parallel to (not hitting) a cabin window?
Hivemind harvest in progress..
It's not like there's a technical solution on the laser pointer end, and as long as pilots use windows there isn't one on the plane end.
What? You can just use windows that filter the appropriate frequencies. Lasers are already regulated, you'd just have to add a tidbit that says laser pointers can only be sold at these specific frequencies. It wouldn't effect legal use - it's not like you really need a rainbow of colors just to point at things.
I smell pay dirt! $10k!
I could drive by the airports on a summer night looking for drunk teenagers for that kind of money.
On the other hand for a small investment of beer and a few pointers, rednecks will only do whats natural.
Daddy needs to pay off his mortgage....
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
With regards to making only certain lasers legal, what happens when someone imports one from another country that doesn't ban them? You have to find and prosecute them anyway.
But more importantly, just filtering out a few specific frequencies but leaving the rest of the spectrum unaffected is not something you "just" do, but is a technically challenging problem. You're also filtering out primary colors, so that's gonna affect color vision of the pilots. I'd rather give the pilots an unimpaired view, on the off chance they need it, and just go after the idiots misusing the pointers.
Cockpit illumination
Here we are talking about a moron intentionally putting hundred of life in danger ...
Not necessarily. Could be amateur astronomers pointing out a "star" to a fellow astronomer using his 'leet laser pointed imported from China...
These pointers are frequently used during these group stargazing events, and yes, many of these people do point at moving objects (planets, satellites,...), and it's easy to see how a plane could end up being confused with satellites or planets by less experienced stargazers.
Ahem....and what makes you think the set of people who would realize this and abuse it is a subset of people who would otherwise point a laser at a plane?
I don't think that follows at all. I mean there is likely some intersection of those sets, but I wouldn't expect it to be a lot.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I assume you meant "engage". Which would suggest that you simply do not understand how modern civil aviation works.
It's not the pilots, it's the cats.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
>p.s., i really hope that between the captain, first officer, and flight engineer, they could avoid crashing the plane in the case of a distracting light.
Or do what they do when they don't have visibility.. ILR.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I've never heard of it until you told me about it. Had to look it up on wikipedia.
Of course, I haven't owned a TV in over 1/3 of my life, so I'm probably not the one to judge movie popularity.
I believe this clip should clear the idea up quickly. The scene in reference is 4:55. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Yes, but only if the perpetrators think that there is a high liklihood of getting caught. If the penalties are very high, but the liklihood of being caught is low, there is little deterrence...
They would be soft, furry and laser resistant. I don't see a problem here.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The problem is not the pilots eyes being shot out but the cockpit windows being illuminated beyond the point of seeing the darkness beyond them
Who use lasers as target designation systems. (on aircraft, amongst other targets) Riiight, that's a great idea.
Probably none but that is not what we are talking about. The issue is lasers aimed into cockpits.
Every idiot kid who throws a rock off an overpass could potentially kill a busload of people. Sometimes they do kill someone, but most of the time they don't and most of the time, they don't get executed or sent to prison for life. That doesn't mean that they aren't being rotten, disgusting excuses for human beings when they do it, it just means that they didn't actually kill anyone. Frankly it seems to me that the people I know personally who are most in favor of extremely harsh punishments for everything are exactly the same people who also did (or sometimes still do) things like driving drunk, racing on public roads, discharging firearms illegally, etc. The hypocricy, self-entitlement and exceptionalism just gets sickening.
I'm by no means suggesting that doing anything to intentionally put a plane full of people at risk, even when the risk is small, isn't a scummy thing to do, nor that it shouldn't be illegal. That doesn't mean that we have to go insane on punishment. Let's not forget that such punishments would end up being applied equally both to psychos who really want to murder hundreds of people and to anyone who simply says to themselves: "gee, I can see the dot from my harmless class 1 laser pointer on the fuselage of that distant plane when I track it. Neat!".
This is really a super easy question for me, and I'm not sure how anyone else could possibly think otherwise -- Pilots should get safety gear that prevents laser flashes from doing the damage they supposedly cause, end of story. If the danger is authentic, then going without protection is an action of the pilot willingly putting the lives of the passengers in danger. There is no other interpretation. Arguments to the contrary are a bit like, let's drive a tandem bicycle into Mad Max world wearing a hunters-bright-orange business suit, and if anyone gets shot, we'll offer a reward for whoever finds who shot them. No. You drive a freaking cast iron battering ram of a vehicle in Mad Max world. If there is an authentic danger that a $10k reward would go to the discovery of someone who shines a laser pointer at an airplaine could cause it to crash, then the prevention of crashes is a matter for the pilot to assess. "Oh, it's all Pearl Harbor outside, and I'm a pilot. I don't need a vest or anything, because the company is supposed to pay for that stuff." In what reality does that make sense?
Step 1: Trick drunk friend into point laser at planes
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!!!
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
These ones. http://www.iridian.ca/english/...
Or, more rationally, you could get glasses specially made for pilots, that block the common laser pointer wavelengths. You might have checked whether they existed before assuming they don't.
http://www.iridian.ca/english/...
Anti laser goggles only work against a limited set of wavelengths, otherwise they would be completely black. You can buy enough different lasers now (I've seen red, green orange, blue and near-UV) that it isn't practical to make goggles that will block them all.
You only need to cover the common ones. Laser pointer incidents are relatively infrequent. Incidents with uncommon laser types will be very rare indeed.
Even if laesrs don't cause eye damage (and I believe they have), they can cause distraction (which is deadly in aircraft - one of the largest causes of accidents), and can prevent the pilot from seeing the instruments .
Since setting down the challenge to cite a pilot who's eyes have been damaged, there have been no takers. So I don't think it's happened.
Heck if it seriously put pilots and planes in danger, there'd be reports of terrorists doing it. High impact, and low risk, if the ground point is well chosen. But again I haven't seen it be a significant terrorist tactic.
For sure it's distracting, and I'm in no way defending those kids and idiots that do it. But there is no way of stamping this crime out. Catching the odd offender and giving harsh penalties hasn't eradicated other crimes and it won't this one either. Therefore a technical approach for when, not if, it happens is more sensible.
Other comments assumed technical issues have been refuted.
but should they? Or rather, should they have to?
It's a crime that won't be eradicated. Thus it's responding to a fact of life. You might as well ask whether a cyclist should have to wear a helmet, a car driver a seat belt, or a promiscuous teen a prophylactic.
Otherwise you might as well conclude that pilots should don bullet proof vests to deal with the people who discharge a firearm in the direction of a plane taking off/landing.
But they don't just ban guns, and give serious penalties to transgressors. They also have a security door to the cockpit, only openable from the cockpits side. Anti-laser glasses is the equivalent of that door.
Regardless, I'm not sure where your stance (if I'm interpreting it correctly) of "attempting to harshly punish those pointing laser pointers at planes, is a bad idea" is coming from.
a) It won't eradicate the crime. They never do. Drug dealing for example is harshly punished, but still very common. As is violence and murder.
b) These laser pointer attacks will either come from children, idiots or (if it's really a serious threat) terrorists. These are the types least likely to be affected by threat of serious punishment.
c) Serious punishment costs the taxpayer serious money. For little useful effect.
The technical approaches make much more sense.
We can use cameras and displays. And get rid of the windows
I had a long reply here but a fat-fingering of ctrl+r made it disappear.
The tl;dr of it is this: I may have misinterpreted your stance, could you clarify if you believe that the technical solution on the pilots' side is sufficient, or whether those who do aim laser pointers at cockpits should be punishable (just not 'seriously') as well?
Of course, if people are caught pointing lasers at planes, they should be punished. I just don't think that spending money on hunting them down, or sending them to jail for long periods is worth it. The money is better spent on technical means to reduce the effect on pilots.
Holy shit! You can use the internet for research?
Yes clearly you're being an ass, but that's just because you really want to be. I never said I couldn't find one, I said I haven't seen one. The fact I haven't seen one doesn't mean they don't exist, but highlights the lack of public education and not my inability to so an internet search. Look at the links the replies have provided. Dry data and safety related. Yea, people that point lasers at aircraft spend a lot of time on sites like that.
The fact I haven't seen a video casually up to that point mean public awareness is incredibly low. What is needed is more public education. Education in schools, more news stories, even some safety commercials. I don't mean the level of drinking and driving safety but more than the next to none that we have now.
It's better than banning lasers altogether, which seems to be the only viable alternative.
Note, I'm one of those crazy bastards that has a 1W blue laser that can light things on fire, pop balloons, cut dark-colored foam, etc. But I am paranoid about the safety aspect and I don't let anyone borrow it or use it without all potentially affected persons wearing eye protection. I have no sympathy for those idiots who think it's fun to use irresponsibly and I even chewed out a few security guards at a grocery store for shining their cheap low-end green lasers all over the store front where people driving could get hit by them and get in an accident. If you don't know that pointing highly focused light beams at people operating vehicles is dangerous, you need to go away for awhile because you're obviously unsuited to the complexities of first-world modern life. It's amost the same level of stupid as dropping rocks off of freeway overpasses.
Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything