Laser strike on JFK-inbound jet

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Source: NY Post

A powerful green laser beam penetrated the cockpit of a jet getting ready to land at JFK International Airport, and it was so bright the pilot had to shield his eyes, authorities said.

The pilot told air traffic controllers that he had to use a sun visor to shield his eyes after the the light shone into the cockpit of the JetBlue plane at 7:45 p.m. The light appeared to come from the shoreline and was pointed directly at the cockpit, the pilot said.

The plane, flying from Portland to JFK, landed safely without incident.

Police are investigating.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/laser_strike_on_jfk_inbound_jet_BDzIELszJEYuUr8wSouotO?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz0lQ0TpkNU

[defendandprotect]

1. k

[NYC_SKP]

2. Dang! That's scary, wonder who the fuck would do that. nt

[Swede]

3. This should be treated as attempted murder.

This is really sick shit.

[av8rdave]

4. Have had that happen to me a few months ago

Wound up talking to local police and FBI about it.

[EFerrari]

5. I don't even know what a laser is in this context.

Someone is doing this on purpose? What do they want?

[Webster Green]

6. It's likely just an idiot playing with a new toy. (n/t)

[av8rdave]

8. The one we dealt with may well have been a tracking one from an observatory

They had no reason I know of to use it at the elevation they did. It appeared to be tracking our aircraft. I never got blinded, but had to make an effort to look away.

[EFerrari]

12. Tracking the aircraft or the trajectory? (Is that the right word?)

Was it apparently dead on or at an angle?

Damn. This is why I like walking. All you need is feet and some kind of surface. I'm glad there was no bad result for you.

[av8rdave]

14. Well, the light stayed in the cockpit for several seconds

Unlikely that's random. We were descending at the time, traveling approximately perpendicular to the beam (wasn't hard to see the source)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

29. laser beams can only be made visible by smoke...unles someone shines it directly in your eyes....

or in this case onto the wall/surfaces of the cockpit or if you looked down on a part of your body where it was being targeted.... you wouldn't see it.

[SkyDaddy7]

34. That's not true...

The green lasers pointers on the market right now can be seen from any angle in low light not even dark. I have one that we use for pointing out stars. I was totally blown away how the laser beam seems to go on forever into the night sky.

However, I would NEVER shine it at a plane like obviously someone did here.

[fleabert]

55. that's correct

They are very powerful, and are awesome for pointing out stars and constellations. but any idiot knows not to shine one at an airplane! we gave a few as gifts a while back, and specifically told the recipients NOT to ever point them at aircraft. (people didn't believe us they were that strong until we showed them)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

66. these were not green lasers they were red and dangereous in the hands of toddlers &children under 15

[SkyDaddy7]

69. Red???

Then why does the article start off, "A powerful green laser beam penetrated the cockpit of a jet getting ready to land at JFK International Airport"???

Red lasers pointers are much weaker than the green ones! Of course none should be given to children.

[av8rdave]

47. There is a lot of reflective material in a cockpit

And given that the source was visible for a lot of it, it was trained directly at us. Sounds exactly like the lead story in this thread.

[tango-tee]

27. This has been happening in Europe, too, according to the news.

Seems there are some people who think it's awfully funny trying to blind pilots on approach.

[MUAD_DIB]

16. IF intentional it is meant to blind the pilot and then...

[Renew Deal]

7. I don't understand how someone can do this succesfully

The angles are terrible and the plan is a moving object. And what kind of laser has the power to do this?

[14thColony]

41. It's easier than you'd think

Which is why laser blinding has seen an increase since the mid90s. The angles are the only serious problem, but if you position yourself relatively close to the axis of the runway being used that takes care of angle, which is why quite a few of these incidents have been on approach; also the most dangerous phase of flight.

And because laser beams expand in diameter with distance, you don't really have to aim at the cockpit; just aim at the plane and beam spread will take care of finding the cockpit. Once the beam hits the cockpit, the plexiglass can work against the aircrew since it tends to conduct the beam's energy all around, in some cases making the whole cockpit canopy glow at nearly the same intensity everywhere (depending on angle). So power levels can be relatively low because the light saturation level of the human eye is also very low - it doesn't take much to make you look away. And if that happens too late in the landing phase, it can be very bad.

Still, I doubt we're talking laser pointers here. But it doesn't have to be a Dr. Evil laser either. Something in the range of a surveyor's laser would do the trick.

[leeloo]

9. I have a large telescope that uses a green laser..

I use it often as a finder scope...Just saying they could be accidental..

[av8rdave]

10. The incident I had stayed focused on my plane for quite a few seconds

[leeloo]

11. Maybe kids?

The lasers are cheap some kid in his backyard pointing it at a plane and thinking nothing of it..

[av8rdave]

13. The origin was pretty far away...

Wouldn't be likely kids would have one that powerful, but I guess you never know.

[leeloo]

15. I guess..

I mean if it blinds you in the cockpit that is powerful i am just talking about those pinpoint ones that our cats chase up and down the wall..
Military?

[av8rdave]

20. No...airline

This was a pretty powerful laser...the source was several miles away,and it lit up the cockpit pretty well.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

30. it could be...I remember about 8 years ago in Wildwood NJ they sold lasers to kids on the Boardwalk,

I went to the boardwalk police a filed a complaint against all the business' who were selling them at $20 a pop, because I saw children shinning them directly into peoples eyes and their own eyes.

In 20 years a whole shit load of people are going to go blind and the only thing they will have in common is - they all spent that summer on the Jersey shore.

Yes my taking action did cause them to cease and desist the sale of these laser lights. They burn the retina

[Blue_Tires]

62. We had that fad in Virginia Beach a little earlier...

maybe 1998 or 1999? All the stores and shops couldn't stock enough of them at $20+ each...

Didn't take long for them to get banned, teens were flashing them in people's eyes from their hotel balcony, after dark they were high-lighting the womanly bits of some other guy's girlfriend, etc... We had a lot of fights break out because of them in a short time...

[divvy]

39. a child could not track a jet from a long distance with accuracy.

This sounds like sophisticated military targeting equipment. The military uses lasers to sight and target missles. I suspect there is a right wing para-military terrorist group that is simply saying "here we are and guess what we can do"

[14thColony]

42. A child could do so easily. Tracking is simple.

And it actually gets easier with distance, not harder, because angular rate diminishes with distance. If you know how to point a stick at a moving target, you've got the skills needed to use a laser to blind an aircrew.

The US Army experiemented with (but never adopted) a prototype air defense blinding laser in the 1980s. It was just a modified M-16 rifle with a small power pack (batteries weren't quite what they are now). In testing, the soldier using it sucessfully engaged the target aircraft as far as 15 nautical miles out with 100% success. The rifle didn't even have a telescopic sight, just plain iron sights.

So like I said, if you can point a stick at a moving target, you've got all the skill needed.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. A lot of 'if's' here but

in your case, depending on your aircraft's lights and siloutte, they MIGHT have thought they were tracking the ISS, or some other satellite, and the laser can be used for spotting to orient a larger telescope, as someone mentioned earlier.

But that's a lot of 'if'. More likely some jackass picked up one of the high-powered green lasers that can light a sheet of paper on fire, and wanted to play with it. People like that rarely consider potential consequences.

[sce56]

17. Reminds me of the Tom Clancy novel where they use a zeon light to blind the pilots of planes

making them wreck.

[digidigido]

18. Probably Dr. Evil

[truthisfreedom]

19. You wouldn't believe how powerful hand-held lasers are getting now.

Visit http://www.wickedlasers.com/

I'm surprised the public can buy them.

[tomhayes]

25. Don't by a green laser

My cats like the laser pointer so i bought the lowest powered green laser I could find to see if they like it better than the red and the green laser hurt my eyes to look at it when running it across the floor.

Stay away from green, blue,orange or violet lasers unless you have a good reason to use them.

[Enthusiast]

28. My cat would like one.

Where can I get it? TIA

[tomhayes]

37. Stick with a low powered red

Or type in green laser on google - loads of places sell them

[Catshrink]

50. I saw them at Office Max

[Greyskye]

70. Our cats prefer red lasers to green

Cats are colorblind in the red spectrum, so they just see shades of gray from red lasers. I wonder if that is part of the attraction?

[caraher]

44. Actually, DO buy a green laser

For a given output power, a green laser is less likely to cause permanent eye damage precisely because they do "hurt (your) eyes to look at." That's because it's NOT a good idea to look into laser beams, and your eyes are most sensitive to green light - this makes you STOP staring into the light, which in turn protects your eyes.

Any laser should have a label that describes its hazard class. Many laser pointed are Class IIIa, which can cause serious eye damage, and I'm amazed that they sell them freely. Some are Class II, and those are the ones to buy. The difference between Class IIIa and Class II is mainly that the Class II lasers aren't powerful enough to cause serious eye damage before you either blink or look away.

Now from the perspective of temporary blindness, the picture changes. But in general, when it comes to lasers, what you "see" is not always related simply to the real hazard. That's why infrared and UV lasers can be particularly dangerous - you don't usually even know your eye is being damaged until it's too late.

[Enthusiast]

58. But it is alright as

long as my cat and I don't look right into it?

He would just chase it along the floor. He is so bored and I am too ill to play with him. My wife is not much of a cat player but she is a cat lover and nurturer.

[caraher]

64. I think that's right

Just check that it's Class II... you want the power to be no more than 1 milliwatt (1 mW). That should be safe enough for your eyes and the cat's regardless of wavelength.

[Catshrink]

48. Green lasers have more energy than red lasers

ROY G BIV - red has the longest wavelenth (630 and 700nm), therefore the lowest energy; green is in the middle (532 nm).

[caraher]

63. Per photon, yes

But laser safety classes are based on power; to be Class II I think you need to be < 5 milliwatts. That's all that matters. To get 5 mW of power you need a large number of photons per second for red light than green, but if you measure the power you don't need to worry about the number of photons per second - you have the number you need to check safety.

In my lab I have a YAG laser that puts out an average power of up to 30 watts at 1064 nm (infrared), and that's a lot more dangerous than the 10 watts at 532 nm I can achieve by nonlinear optics. (And because my laser is pulsed, it's even more dangerous - the 3 watts comes in teh form of ten 3-joule pulses of 10 nanosecond duration every second, for a peak power of 300 megawatts!)

[Xithras]

71. Most of those aren't legal in the U.S.

Wicked is located in Hong Kong. I know more than one person who ordered from them, only to receive an empty box with a Customs sticker on it. They'll take your money and ship it to you, but it's random luck as to whether you'll actually get it or not.

[proteus_lives]

21. Creepy. Dry-run for something later?

[Drunken Irishman]

22. Shoot 'em in the head and feed their bodies to the dogs.

:o

[chollybocker]

24. Apologist.

;)

[No Elephants]

32. LOL

[Rex]

26. How could someone track a plane moving at that speed and keep the

beam in the cockpit? From the ground?

[garybeck]

31. a plane coming at you appears to be barely moving.

if you have a telescope, it would be fairly easy

[ManiacJoe]

52. And on approach, they are going really slow.

[av8rdave]

59. Trust me, they can

The suspicion in my case is that it was a tracking laser from an observatory, so they probably had some gear that can do that.

[14thColony]

60. In field tests it has been shown to be stupid simple to do

If you can see the plane and have some rough way to aim the laser (like tape it to the end of a pole then aim it like a rifle) it's easy as pie to keep the plane in the beam, because laser beams become cones at any appreciable distance, and the greater the distance the bigger the cone.

[NecklyTyler]

33. TBaggers trying to crash another plane

First the TBaggers crash another plane, then blame it on the 'Socialist' Air Traffic Control system

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Shining Jack]

35. Wow,that's nut !

[dorkulon]

36. This headline is a bit sensational, no?

I thought the Martians had finally attacked. ;)

[divvy]

38. I immediately suspect a right-wing domestic terrorist group.

This whole tea-bag crap is again stirring up the dreggs of our society. Just think of the anthrax mailings that got trace back to a military source, or McViegh who was military and then malita. It is a sophisticated laser system that can track a jetliner with enough precision to make the pilot put on a sun shield. It sounds like military misfits once again.

[stray cat]

45. The progressives and conservatives each have their favorite terrorist group to blame

Progressives blame home grown terrorists and conservatives blame external groups

[Socal31]

68. With you on the first part, not on the second.

It does not take much to be able to do this. It seems like this was in the news 3-4 years ago....

[boppers]

40. You can't land a plane with your eyes closed?

Seriously, this is totally lame.

[NikRik]

43. Some newer planes automatic landing application onboard !

If they have not already come up with this then why not.Could a program be written that would allow the pilot to simply line the plane up with the landing site and then flip a auto-pilot landing
switch and the plane could land itself. In this tecnology, including drones and unmaned planes that fly themsleves why would they not start fitting all passenger planes with this type of ability ? We have cars that can park themselves why not passenger planes that can land themsleves ? Seems harldy a impossible feat ?
Just Curious NikRik

[boppers]

61. We already have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

[old mark]

46. I recently saw an ad for a green laser gun sighting device - supposedly

the green color is more readily visible to the human eye,and this laser sight claims a nighttime range of over 2 miles. It is a small plastic box shaped unit of grey plastic that clamps to the front of a gun, puts out 100 lumens continuous, 140 in strobe mode. It is made by a company called Viridian and costs around $350.
I doubt this was kids unless they had a lot of money to spend.


mark

[caraher]

65. I Googled Viridian sights

They're spec'd at 5 mW peak power, Class IIIa so not really eye-safe... but actually, at a large distance I think it probably would be too weak to cause permanent damage. They say the beam divergence is 1.2 mrad, which means that the diameter of the beam is 1.2 feet per thousand feet of distance. At 1 mile that would be 6 feet diameter, which means that the peak intensity is many times below what it is at a few tens of feet.

And yes, your eyes are indeed far more sensitive to green light than red. Compare a green laser pointer to a red laser pointer with the same power - it's a huge difference!

[old mark]

67. I first saw the ads a few weeks ago - maybe some people are trying them out...nt

[AllyCat]

49. After months of insanity, all I can think is this is some anti-guvmint freak

Hope they find whoever this is and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

[goforit]

53. Well, the laser, thank god, didn't hurt the plane only was a bright light.

[no limit]

54. The NY Post. Lol.

Some kid pointed a pocket laser at a cockpit. Lets bomb someone.

[Kablooie]

56. Green hand held laser pointers can be very strong.

[tonekat]

57. Every now and then the police arrest one of these idiots who do this:

http://www.airopscops.com/index.php/news/man_accused_of_shining_laser_arrested

Not too smart to aim it at a police heicopter. This guy also aimed at a commercial aircraft.

[Old Troop]

72. This has been happening off and on for about 15 years

some military pilots have suffered eye damage from the lasers.