another aircraft incident

[Dr_Evil]

JetBlue Pilot Suffers Eye Injury From Green Laser | ABC News Blogs - Yahoo!

A JetBlue pilot suffered an eye injury when a green laser was pointed directly into the cockpit as the plane was en route to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

The FAA says the incident took place Sunday when the green laser was shone through the windshield of JetBlue Flight 657 from Syracuse, hitting the first officer in the eye. The pilot immediately notified the control tower after the incident.

"JetBlue 657, that was about 5,000 feet, right?" the control tower asked.

"Yes sir, 5,000 feet. Two green flashes, and it caught the first officer in his eye," the pilot said.

 

[AnthoT]

God dammit these retards!

 

[ryansoh3]

What the hell are people thinking?

I'm lost for words.

 

[onedeaged]

I was at the place at the exact time this happened since I'm currently in NY for vacation. I heard about this yesterday and friends were blaming me for this since I own a green laser. I just found that kind of funny. Id never point a laser at a plane + I left it back in California.

 

[ryansoh3]

I was at the place at the exact time this happened since I'm currently in NY for vacation. I heard about this yesterday and friends were blaming me for this since I own a green laser. I just found that kind of funny. Id never point a laser at a plane + I left it back in California.

Good point.

I hate those irresponsible ones who're ruining this great hobby for us.

 

[Flaminpyro]

I have a feeling that the people that are doing this have no interest in the hobbie side.

Good point.

I hate those irresponsible ones who're ruining this great hobby for us.

 

[AnthoT]

I have a feeling that the people that are doing this have no interest in the hobbie side.

They obviously don't... They just have to have a 1000$ wicked lasers 200mw green to impress their friends saying " haha look I probably blinded that guy!" or they have nothing else to do with their lives but blind people... Hopefully they got nice big fines...

 

[joeyss]

This one makes me wonder...what laser can do eye damage from a mile away? Not a cheap WL 200mw....it had to be the 1 W 700mw crapton

 

[ObiKwiet]

I doubt that there was an actual injury. I think the reporter half-assed the news piece and interpreted "blinded" as injured. If you take into account atmospheric attenuation over 5000+ feet and divergence, you'd need something extremely powerful with very expensive optics to get anywhere close to 5mw+ into the pilots eyes. And at that distance, dwell time is going to be an issue for someone using their hands to point the laser.

It's certainly dangerous in that is inhibits the pilots ability to pilot the plane, but I don't see how anyone could cause eye damage without tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

 

[onedeaged]

I doubt that there was an actual injury. I think the reporter half-assed the news piece and interpreted "blinded" as injured. If you take into account atmospheric attenuation over 5000+ feet and divergence, you'd need something extremely powerful with very expensive optics to get anywhere close to 5mw+ into the pilots eyes. And at that distance, dwell time is going to be an issue for someone using their hands to point the laser.

It's certainly dangerous in that is inhibits the pilots ability to pilot the plane, but I don't see how anyone could cause eye damage without tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

The pilot got away with no permanent damage. Also from what I've heard no one was actually on the plane other than the pilots.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I was about to post a link to this story, but then I saw this thread. Acctualy some people at my work found this story and were jokingly asking me if I was responsible for that. I hate how people ruin things for the rest of us.

 

[TheDukeAnumber1]

I just don't get it, there are fun things you can do with lasers, but there isn't anything to get out of shining one at an aircraft.

 

[Henrique]

ours, what a horrible thing, because of these idiots who can not use a laser many bad things happen!

 

[Fiddy]

Some stupid comments from that article:

"Use caution. I just had an unauthorized laser illumination event about seven miles ahead of you at 5,000 feet," the control tower said. "JetBlue 657, we are looking into the matter."

i wonder, when does one get a authorized laser illumination ?

and

What happens is that pinpoint spreads out as it gets up higher and farther away, and what may seem like a very faint light to you, in a cockpit, gets almost blinding," San Francisco International Airport spokesman Mike McCarron said.

GTFO, it spreads out as you get further away from the laser? so it gets almost blinding in the cockpit? thats like some anti divergence shit there... who is this retard?

 

[Digital]

How do you hit a plane that is taking off at 5k feet from 7 miles away? What a crock of crap. Typical fear mongering in the news.

I could see if they were on approach and you were standing on perimeter road but cmon now.

That Jetblue plane is a Embraer ERJ-190. This is the cockpit. What's the windshield, like 10x3'? That planes take-off speed is about 155mph, and they had already climbed to 5000 feet. So figure it was around +200mph by then. So you hit a 10x3 object 7 miles away, going 200mph, and then hit an object inside that 10x3' space the size of a dime? riiighhttt.
Let's not forget that the plane is pointing upwards during all this reducing the area of the windshield exposed to the ground by an extreme amount.

 

[nouthyella]

Exactly my thoughts. It was impossible for the pilot to have been injured by a laser, even a 2W blue laser, at that kind of distance. The plane was a good 10km away from the laser, and even with 0.5 mrad divergence the light levels would not be sufficient to cause any kind of damage. Distracted, possibly, but in no way could it have been "injury".