Plane Returns To London After 'Laser Incident'
 

[A "medical issue" was reported
with one of the pilots after a laser
was shone into the cockpit about
six miles from Heathrow.]


These Punks who shine Lasers
up at planes
must be locked in prison.

http://media.skynews.com/media/image...-1-736x414.jpg

[An audio recording to air traffic
control suggests one of the pilots
sustained a "medical issue" following
the incident, which occurred six or seven
miles west of Heathrow.
It is believed the laser had
obscured the First Officer's vision,
prompting Flight VS025 to JFK to
return to Heathrow as a "precautionary measure".]

http://news.sky.com/story/1642056/pl...laser-incident

definitely deserves an ASBO

Hopefully they don't get away with this, what a moronic thing to do.

That would have to be some laser, planes fly very high :/

I think they are just the cheap ones you can buy anywhere - fancy putting it on the news showing how much disruption it has caused.

Morons.

This was an ongoing problem at Edinburgh airport for a while. I can't understand what people get out of doing something like this??

They should get in a lot of trouble for that.Very dangerous.I know planes have a second pilot and auto pilot but imagine if something had gone wrong they could'nt land it?Imagine if both pilots had been affected by it and they could'nt see to change course.

Lasers aren't like torches, the light travels in a (more or less) straight line unlike a normal light source which spreads out. Therefore, they do have a very long range.

This has been a problem at airports ever since these laser pens became widely available. There no way to catch whoever did it unless someone witnesses them doing it and goes to the police - the beam could be coming from absolutely anywhere in a fairly wide radius. There's no way to trace exactly where it came from.

Needle in a haystack I would say. People would need to be caught in the act. Personally, i think laser device usage should be regulated and controlled, but there is already a vast number imported from other countries, so the horse has already bolted.

I remember kids shining them in people's eyes at high school. Luckily no one that I saw suffered any real harm but I wouldn't be surprised if there are kids out there who have had their eyesight permanently damaged by some stupid kid shining a laser pen around.

Wouldn't that be determined by the size and the power of the laser, could something powered by an AAA battery reach 36,000 ft?

Not a little laser pen, no, but you can get hold of a 20km (over 60,000 feet) laser for probably under £100.

Well, that puts this in a new light (geddit)
What kid would spend that much on a laser pointer? :suspect:

The problem is at take off
its low.

So a basic Laser Pointer
can attack the cockpit

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-conten...rs-348x196.jpg

to be 6 miles from the airport how high could the plane have climbed?

A basic laser could hit maybe 6000 feet but I can't see a plane being at that height 6 miles from the airport? I dunno though. I don't know much about being a pilot really :joker:.

At that range I wouldn't think a small laser pen would dazzle the pilots or affect vision though. The light would have spread out to a couple of meters in diameter and just look like a torch beam.

To answer Kizzy's question though: teenagers have all sorts of ridiculous gadgets from what I remember, and £100 isn't a lot of money these days. There's every chance it was late teens / early 20's "uni age" idiots rather than actual little kids. You'd be amazed how stupid and irresponsible people can still be in early adulthood.

Why are teenagers being blamed? It could just as easily be adults, lasers are used in plane spotting where the spotter tags the plane fuselage with a laser and presumably take a pic

Green laser pointers can go from a couple of miles up to 40 miles depending on the the wattage.

Probably muslims trying to down it.

Someone I know used to have one of these, I think the trouble is people don't realise the danger of doing stupid things like this. Surely this is not legal?

Please tell me this is a joke :umm2:

If the police can catch one of these morons using a laser on a plane, charge them with terrorist activity and throw them in jail for at least 10 years, the mis use of these lasers would drop dramatically.

I knew plenty of kids in high school that spent more than 100 on stupid things that boys like, like ninja stars, and novelty knives. teenagers have more disposable income than you think.

don't they just but there are lots with very little as well.

I knew a kid who spent £70 (at the time well over $100) on a yo-yo. A ****ing yo-yo.