Rogue Lasers Targeting More and More Aircraft
From the Flying Magazine eNewsletter:
Lasers are getting cheaper and more powerful, and that’s bad news for pilots. The FAA posted 2,836 laser incidents last year – nearly double the amount for 2009. Perhaps scarier, whether you’re a pilot or not, Class 4 lasers, capable of blinding or burning someone almost instantly, have entered the market for prices south of $300. That will make enforcement of federal law that much more difficult, but for those detected targeting a commercial aircraft with the lasers, the penalty could include a quarter-million-dollar fine and 20 years in a federal prison to think about how much fun it was. The newer more potent lasers have the capability to cause damage to retinas as well as causing night blindness among pilots – an obviously life-threatening risk.
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?!
It might be my bias as a pilot talking here, but I really think the solution is to make a variant of these which can target laser pointers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM
Incidentally, there’s one less person out there doing this:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Laser-Suspect-Chose-the-Wrong-Target-114588539.html
Huzzah!