There has been an alarming increase in laser incidents involving commercial aircraft in recent years. Usually these incidents are reported to authorities but don’t cause diversions or major operational issues. Well, The Aviation Herald reports on a particularly noteworthy laser incident that took place earlier this week.
Continue reading: Virgin Atlantic 787 Diverts After Pilot Injured By Laser
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Lasers, drones, bird strikes, people running across active runways ( although rare but does happen ), quite a bit the crew has to watch out for that the passengers are oblivious about. Hope they nail the guy good.
Lasers powerful enough like these should be banned for sale to consumers, there’s no feasible need for them other then annoying/harming others
Acknowledging the stupidity of trying something like this, I’m shocked it could even work.
Unless you’re in line with the runway with some altitude, how do you get a laser into the cockpit at an angle to hit a pilot In the eyes?
@Reaper: "Unless you’re in line with the runway with some altitude, how do you get a laser into the cockpit at an angle to hit a pilot In the eyes?"
This is a good question. But it's not impossible: Pilots can see the ground, so a laser that's in their line of sight to the ground can "see" the pilot.
Even so, the chances of actually hitting the pilot in the eye is small, and any contact with the eye is likely to be brief. But I guess if the laser is powerful enough, even a brief laser illumination of the eye could be harmful.
I really wonder what kind of sicko gets off on this kind of thing. But then again, how many shootings like the one in Atlanta happen on a daily basis?
@Reaper: No only that but for how long was he able to keep the laser on the pilot's eyes while the plane was at high speed and going up? Unless it is a laser that instantly blinds people you have to have the laser pointed directly to the eye for at least some time to really cause damage. People like this should be in jail for life. Hope the pilot does not have any permanent damage on his eye.
I am wondering how this is even possible? If the plane is climbing say at 6 degrees how does somebody on the ground get a laser into the cockpit? They would need to be really high up.
Many posters here do not realize how laser works or maybe haven't seen one. Even a cheap consumer version of laser with few watts output has enough power to damage your eye temporarily from quite a distance.
It just needs a straight line of sight to an object and 'focus' part on cheap consumer lasers is not very good so a laser pointed from couple miles out will have significant 'spread' - It will probably cover a circle of foot or more in diameter from that distance.
Not that hard to shine on cockpit of a plane with very high chance of getting into the eyes of at least one (if not both) pilot(s).
These incidents should be taken very seriously and should result in automatic jail time - not fines.
Seems like multiple commenters have no idea what a laser hitting the cockpit looks like. Hint: it’s not a small bean. It’s a scattered and blindingly bright light. Google “laser cockpit” and watch a video to get a visual idea.
The individual arrested needs to get punished severely for endangering hundreds of lives and potentially ruining the career of the pilots...
People who do this should be charged with terrorism. Or whatever someone shooting a gun at a plane would be charged with (I assume terrorism, might be wrong though). Imagine if a laser blinded BOTH pilots…the potential consequences of this are disastrous and anyone who does it should absolutely face 20+ year sentences
Just a little question?
By the time he could return to London he could already fly to Tel Aviv
I love all the people who get on their high horse on here. "jail jail... what are THEY going to dooooooooo?" Oh dear.
I'm not buying this story. So out of all the flights departing LHR, this happened to VS TWICE? Both times they continued for about 30 mins, then turned back. BOTH times?.... ok. No one questions the odds of this. Hmm
@jud fon
Not so. LHR-PAR is about 40mins. LHR-TLV 4hrs 45mins.
At that flight time, the crew would undoubtedly be working a "turnaround" or there and back, so he would not have been able to receive treatment for at least another 9-10hrs.
40 mins back to base only option.
However, I find some credence in @Jordan's comment
Anyone know if the VS A340 Pilot managed disability retirement?
What are the odds 2 Boeing 777s from the same airline go down in the same year? You got a conspiracy theory for that one too?
@Jordan
What a bullock... I flew a cessna 172 and around the same time, a commercial airline was reporting laser attack. It’s real problem jackass