Rock

Did I miss reading about this on an ALPA or FedEx site? Two FDX A300 guys hospitalized for a laser incident?
Pilots suffer eye injuries after laser pointer shone into cockpit during approach to Sunport | KOB.com

HDawg

It is in the 2/10 Positive Rate

MikeF16

Just like unregulated drones, nothing will really be done until we lose a large jet. It won't gain any traction until there is a smoking hole and body bags.

MEMA300

Your joking right. You must have us confused with a passenger carrier. How many jets do we got to destroy before we get attention? Either ALPA or FPA pushed for 90 day landing currency between MD10/MD11 types, denied!

CAVOK84

I honestly don't know an effective way to handle this issue. I had a pretty bad lasing in Indy last year where I had eye pain through the layover and next day.

I've always been interested in lasers, and actually had a summer with too much time on my hands when I made a laser out of a blu-ray drive capable of lighting cigarettes and popping balloons.

The truth is green lasers of significant wattage have become ubiquitous and easily obtained. They are a fraction of the cost as they were a few years ago. They flow in bulk from china, purchased online with little regard for the damage they can do to the operator (not to mention whoever is at the other end of the beam), and dwarf lasers of a few years ago in range and power.

Lasing events like the one described above (and mine) are perhaps something more malicious than a kid waving a new pointer around. To target an aircraft on approach (specifically the windscreen)-- requires a mounting system, a powerful laser, and in my opinion implies intent to do harm.

I'd like to see a more aggressive plan to locate the people doing the lasing and a much more aggressive penalty... Perhaps additional public awareness of the issue in problematic areas.

I don't think that additional regulation of obtaining the lasers will be effective though. There is already a significant amount of regulation in place for obtaining these lasers, and I believe that the people doing this will simply ignore additional regs.

Dadof6

I offer this lesson learned the hard way: several years ago, our jet experienced a laser attack departing CDG to the east. During a low-altitude (3000-4000' AGL) turn, the Captain (PF) saw "something" out his side window and looked that way. (It was a bad guy drawing his attention by flashing a green laser up & down & all around in the general vicinity of our jet.) Then the laser completely disappeared--for about 2-3 seconds--until it was shined directly at the window, and caught the Captain squarely in his eyes. He transferred control of the jet, closed his eyes, and experienced a mild burning & itching sensation for several minutes. He stated that the toughest part was resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Fortunately, no permanent damage (at that time, anyway) was discovered after the trip ended.

This type of deliberate, calculated attack--when our eyes/pupils are fully dilated--is especially heinous. So--to quote from "Hill Street Blues," let's be careful out there, folks. Just don't look!