Quote :

"The JetBlue flight was preparing to land in New York City after a short hop from Syracuse when a piercing ray of light shot into the cockpit, directly into the eyes of the pilot. Flight 657 landed safely at John F. Kennedy International Airport, but the incident Sunday was the latest example of a brazen trend that aviation officials say continues to grow at airports nationwide. Last year, there were 3,592 reported laser incidents at U.S. airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2010, the number was 2,836. According to LaserPointerSafety.com, 1,519 such incidents had been reported in 2012 before the latest one, putting the year on track to exceed the 2011 total. The first year the FAA tracked such incidents, 2005, there were 283. Since June 2011, 28 people have faced charges related to the use of lasers, the FAA said. In a statement, JetBlue said the Embraer 190, with 80 passengers, was on approach to JFK when the laser beamed into the cockpit. The plane "landed uneventfully at 9:19 p.m.," the airline said, adding that airline security and police were investigating the incident. An FAA report said a flight crew member "sustained minor injury to the eye" when struck by the laser. Neither the FAA nor JetBlue released additional details. LaserPointerSafety.com, which monitors laser incidents worldwide, said the FAA defines laser eye injuries as anything from after-images to watering, normal consequences of a bright light being beamed into the eye. While such injuries may seem relatively minor, the FAA says, anything that can blind a pilot even for a few seconds may have dangerous consequences. In one incident cited by LaserPointerSafety, the pilots of a medical helicopter in England were repeatedly beamed by a laser last September as they tried to land to pick up a man suffering a heart attack. An ambulance eventually was dispatched to get the patient, who died. The two men who admitted pointing the laser are not being held liable for the death because there was no proof that the delay in getting him treatment caused the fatality. Medical helicopters and law enforcement vehicles are frequent targets of laser attacks. Earlier this month, a Florida man was arrested for aiming a laser pointer at a sheriff's helicopter in Polk County. The 44-year-old man sought to blame the store for selling him a dangerous device, telling police "he did not understand why the stores would sell a laser pointer if the laser pointer is illegal to use," according to local media reports. In California, a 23-year-old man was arrested in May for allegedly pointing a laser at a Pasadena police helicopter. It was the city's ninth laser incident so far this year."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-jet-blue-laser-20120717,0,3891992.story

7/18/2012 11:19:49 AM

[new]

7/18/2012 11:20:54 AM

what needs to happen is to outfit aircraft with powerful lasers that can pinpoint where the laser beam is coming from on the ground, and then burn the person to ashes. PROBLEM SOLVED.

7/18/2012 11:29:49 AM

would this work in a dog fight?

7/18/2012 11:30:29 AM

Dogs don't have thumbs for laser pointers, retard.

7/18/2012 11:34:29 AM

Quote :

"laser attacks"

7/18/2012 11:39:09 AM

isnt there laser saftey film you can place on a window to reduce the intenstiy of a laser? I could have swore I saw a vendor selling this stuff to put on military vehicles so drivers wont become blinded.

or maybe im retarded.

probly retarded.

7/18/2012 11:39:19 AM

should have been wearing these babies

7/18/2012 11:41:20 AM

how does one on the ground even aim a laser pointer this precisely?

7/18/2012 11:41:56 AM

"Last year, there were 3,592 reported laser incidents at U.S. airports"

-_- really.. ten a day?

who would have thought that "lasers made me do it" would one day become an acceptable excuse for calling in sick?

7/18/2012 11:46:46 AM

^^

yeah I don't get this.

The ability to hit someone directly in the eye who's sitting in a cockpit in an airplane travelling hundreds of miles per hour on a descending vector strikes me as extremely difficult. But for there to be thousands of reported instances is even more mind boggling.

I can't buy that it's random people standing on their roofs with hand held laser pointers doing this.

[Edited on July 18, 2012 at 12:31 PM. Reason : .]

7/18/2012 12:29:44 PM

The plane takes off.

7/18/2012 2:29:32 PM