Virgin Atlantic flight back in UK after 'laser incident'

[Isaac Clarke]

the Australian gov don't have resource for that.... all they can do is tracking and that's about it.... no way a satelite can see the green laser...... it just too far away....

 

[Deleted member 46822]

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Oh this won't cause problems
Report a Laser Incident

Be careful outside, you don't want some good Samaritan thinking you are doing something wrong, if you see or hear an aircraft anywhere just keep it in your pocket. Maybe don't draw attention either, many people are idiots, sorry but they are.

Report a laser incident on your mobile device! You aren't kidding RCB. "Oh this won't cause any problems" From where I stay most of the time in a big 14 floor high rise in Fall River where any news no matter how stupidly small spreads like wildfire to when I go to my Brookline home a town near Boston known for being a notoriously snob town that if you don't cut your lawn everyday you will hear about it. Either way if they see me using them i'm up to no good or a terrorist "in their this is my claim to fame mind" to rat someone out on something they have no clue about

 

[Alaskan]

I'm in trouble, my whole love of the hobby is how the beam looks in the sky at night, most of the time I point low towards mountains, I look for aircraft in the sky, anywhere, before I do so. If I see one no matter how far away or what direction, I don't use my laser. I am sure you see my beam shots in my avatar, but high pointing into the sky is the except for me, I do so more for photo's of the beam than any other time. Once I was pointing over the top of a mountain when living down south and a aircraft showed up right in the direction I was pointing, damn! You can't see them coming from a long distance away.

 

[doenitz]

The airplane (an Airbus A340 from Virgin) was reportedly at 8,000 feet and climbing when the first officer was hit by a red laser from a side window. I guess that puts the laser at least 2 miles away. I'm a bit amazed they cancelled a transatlantic flight and dumped a couple of hundred tonnes of jet fuel because of that. No one should ever point a laser at an airplane, that's something we can all agree on. But I can't help to suspect that there was a bit of a overreaction in this case.

 

[NightExplorer96]

^That dosent make sense though. If you look at the flight map the plane diverted after passing Ireland's NorthWest coast which is pretty far from London.

The only way this could of happened is during takeoff and they kept flying for hundreds of miles deciding what to do. I am saying this dosent make sense because on a regular jetliner your at 36,000 feet in about 10-20mins.

-Alex

 

[doenitz]

^That dosent make sense though. If you look at the flight map the plane diverted after passing Ireland's NorthWest coast which is pretty far from London.

The only way this could of happened is during takeoff and they kept flying for hundreds of miles deciding what to do. I am saying this dosent make sense because on a regular jetliner your at 36,000 feet in about 10-20mins.

-Alex

Yup. He was hit at 8,000 ft, but they didn't decide to abort the flight until about half an hour later, while passing Ireland. He didn't have any vision impairment but they decided to abort anyway just to be on the safe side.

I find it a bit strange, to be honest.

 

[Pi R Squared]

Don't know if you all missed it but in the past few hours there have been many news stories about the Pope's plane targeted with a laser when it landed in Mexico City. I wonder if there are even many lasers in Mexico? I think we may have only had three members here from Mexico. Anyway I hope that never happens to any plane carrying any other world leaders or all hell is going to break loose.

Alan

 

[Rivem]

Don't know if you all missed it but in the past few hours there have been many news stories about the Pope's plane targeted with a laser when it landed in Mexico City. I wonder if there are even many lasers in Mexico? I think we may have only had three members here from Mexico. Anyway I hope that never happens to any plane carrying any other world leaders or all hell is going to break loose.

Alan

Here's a link: Pope Francis' Plane Hit by Laser Beam Over Mexico City - ABC News

I honestly don't know what people are thinking when they do this. It's not like the plane has that much higher of a chance of crashing, and the likeliness that a pilot will be blinded also seems to be pretty low. Are these idiots who just like to point lasers or idiotic terrorists? This does give a general vicinity of where you are.

I think people overreact to this as well though. Sometimes it's just a kid who got a hold of a laser pointer and nothing nefarious. It's dangerous but not necessarily nefarious.

 

[Benm]

Perhaps they don't know any better and figure it is a method of saying 'hi' to the arriving pope with no malicious intent at all.

But as far as the Virgin flight goes, i think it's utter BS. At an altitude of 8000 ft any visible path to ground is likely to be as long as 4 kilometers. There is no handheld laser on the mainstream market that can exceed MPE levels at 4 kilometers distance, unless you run it through a bigass telescope and somehow manage to aim that at an airplane.

Even something extreme like a 5 watt single mode 532 has a divergence of 1 mrad or so, resulting at 5 watts of ligt covering a 4 meter radius circle once it reaches the aircraft. I'm sure it's noticeable, annoying etc, but realistically this is comparable to the amount of light you get on the road from streetlamps lighting a sidewalk - few people get eye damage from those i reckon.

 

[Laser Chick]

So true, most (not all) of it is just media and airliner hype to force the hand of the government against lasers unfortunately.

 

[Razako]

Perhaps they don't know any better and figure it is a method of saying 'hi' to the arriving pope with no malicious intent at all.

But as far as the Virgin flight goes, i think it's utter BS. At an altitude of 8000 ft any visible path to ground is likely to be as long as 4 kilometers. There is no handheld laser on the mainstream market that can exceed MPE levels at 4 kilometers distance, unless you run it through a bigass telescope and somehow manage to aim that at an airplane.

Even something extreme like a 5 watt single mode 532 has a divergence of 1 mrad or so, resulting at 5 watts of ligt covering a 4 meter radius circle once it reaches the aircraft. I'm sure it's noticeable, annoying etc, but realistically this is comparable to the amount of light you get on the road from streetlamps lighting a sidewalk - few people get eye damage from those i reckon.

It's really just media driven fear mongering. Same with guns. The media just loves a big scary story and the ignorant gulp it right up. The idea that a handheld laser pointer could really interfere with a jetliner at cruising altitude is ludicrous.

 

[pmurph5]

The UK has a problem..
They had a medically documented, retinal discoloration in December, while the aircraft was in flight.....

Something more then your average idiot with a cheap pointer..

Steve

Steve --

The retinal "photoreceptor disruption" was picked up by a highly sensitive instrument. It was not seen in initial visual and photographic tests. The pilot’s symptoms “fully resolved 2 wk later” and there was no “deficit in visual function.”

Earlier this month I spoke with a laser safety expert with direct, detailed knowledge of that particular case. He said he “doesn’t believe it was laser-induced” and that the injury being caused by a laser was “not confirmed, despite what the journal paper says.” More info is here.

Unfortunately, this will never catch up to the original journal story.

-- Patrick Murphy, LaserPointerSafety.com

 

[Benm]

It's really just media driven fear mongering. Same with guns. The media just loves a big scary story and the ignorant gulp it right up. The idea that a handheld laser pointer could really interfere with a jetliner at cruising altitude is ludicrous.

At cruising altitude it's completely ludicrous indeed, the only times a plane would be vulnerable to laser interference is take off and landing, where the person with the laser would have to be relatively close to the runway.

Guns are more dangerous in some aspects, such as that you could accidentily shoot someone in the back, while you can hardly blind someone with a laser unless he is looking at it. Guns are also made of the specific purpose of killing or injuring people or animals - they have very little other practical application.

Fearmongering it is though, if i want to hurt someone i might as well whack them over the head with a skillet, stab them with a chefs knive, run them over with a car, or go beserk using a chainsaw.

With lasers the stories are often more about accidental exposure. If you live near an airport you should of course be careful, but otherwise pointing any laser you can lift straight up and firing it will not make it rain airplanes, period. If it were effective i'd expect massive sales of laser pointers to ISIS and such