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$10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide

Posted by Soulskill on from the video-your-friends-for-fun-and-profit dept.

coondoggie writes: "The FBI today said it was making national a pilot program it tried out in 12 locations earlier this year that offers up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft. According to the FBI, the pilot locations have seen a 19% decrease in the number of reported laser-to-aircraft incidents. Those locations included: Albuquerque, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Philadelphia."

7 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. huh by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You'd think they'd have just put polarized glass in the cockpit by now if it were that big of a deal. Oh wait... that's right, it's not that big of a deal.

    Why do we continue to allow things like this to get blown so far out of proportion that we end up sending 16yr olds to prison for something that never really had a chance to do harm to anyone in the first place? A landing aircraft is moving faster than freeway traffic at it's slowest. Without computer control and actuators there is no way a person could, by hand, hold a laser on a cockpit window for more than a tenth of a second. If a pilot is unable to land a plane after a flash of light that brief, we'd better start making lightening illegal because it's a hell of a lot brighter, and more common than a laser strike.

    1. Re:huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fear mongering does not need to be rational, this is citizen training so that they hear and see how rewarding it can be to turn in people for cash.

    2. Re:huh by dinfinity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      QFT, last year I sat in the cockpit during an evening landing in Egypt (Sharm-el-sheik) and where I had previously dismissed the whole pointing lasers thing, that landing quickly brought me around. Granted, pilots generally land on the instruments anyway, but looking out the windows was certainly not an option anymore because of the effect the laser pointers had on the canopy.

      One of the things I had always wondered (and asked the pilots) was 'Who would do such a thing? What do they gain from it?' until we were walking around in the (touristic) city centre at night. Tons of shops that sold massively overpowered laser pointers and more importantly: lots of small kids waving those things around.

    3. Re:huh by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      http://www.usnews.com/news/art...

      14yrs in prison. Most people in prison for HOMICIDE serve half that.

      This is the definition of unfair sentencing .

  2. Re:Off the Flight Path... by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    [...]offers up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft.

  3. Re:Off the Flight Path... by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Laser advertising needs special permissions and is either focused at a billboard, wall, etc, or if aimed at the sky under permanent direct control of an expert and only permissible with similar restrictions as fireworks. Your question is stupid.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. A first-hand perspective for the doubters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm an airline pilot who has been lased three times, and I'm probably one of the only pilots in the country to have also earned a degree as a laser technician. With these credentials I was chosen to represent my airline at the ALPA Laser Illumination Conference in 2011. http://laserconference.alpa.or... The threat is real. It's easy to dismiss it as a "what are the odds" type of event, but the truth is that it happens far too frequently. People can buy these 1+ watt diode lasers very easily online and do with them what they will, and they frequently choose to point them at airplanes. What does it look like in the cockpit? Pretty much like an intense green strobe effect. And the worst thing is that once the light is seen the first time it's human instinct to look out the window to try and find the cause of the flash. Then the second blast hits as the pilot is looking directly at it. Depending on altitude and beam divergence, there's a real possibility of permanent eye damage. The lower to the ground, the more likely the damage. At night a pilot's vision is kept adapted to the ambient light in the cockpit, so their pupils are dilated to allow more light in. This also increases likelihood of damage. Flash blindness can last for many minutes, and it's a very bad thing to have your pilots flash blinded. It is a real issue, and having personally experienced it, I can say it's a problem.