Aircraft 'at risk' from lasers
Updated on 06 July 2009
Airline pilots are demanding government action to stop laser beams being shone into aircraft cockpits during take-offs and landings. Julian Rush reports.
Channel 4 News has discovered an alarming rise in the number of incidents reported to the Civil Aviation Authority, from just 29 in 2007 to 206 last year. Already this year there have been 143 occasions when pilots have been distracted.
Landing and take-off are the most dangerous phases of any flight. When a laser beam hits the aircraft windscreen, its light scatters to cause a “white-out” which means the pilots lose sight of the ground. It can also temporarily blind them, making it difficult for them see their instruments.
BALPA, the pilots’ union, has written to the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis: “The risk is a very severe one”, BALPA Flight Safety Officer David Reynolds told Channel 4 News. “There is the risk of the loss of an aircraft, ultimately.”
The pilots want malicious use of a laser against an aircraft to be a criminal offence; currently it falls under the catch-all “endangering an aircraft” legislation that includes air rage.
The lasers look like a toy pen, but their beam can shine for over two miles; at close range they can damage the eyes, including blindness. Unlike the low-power versions sold as pointers for use in lecture theatres, they have no commercial or professional use. Yet we bought one easily on the internet for £60.
Three years the Health Protection Agency wrote to Trading Standards asking them to ban the sale of high power lasers. Nothing has happened. Christine Heemskerk of the Trading Standards Institute says that’s because it would require primary legislation and probably Europe-wide action.
But the police are having some success. In London the Metropolitan Police helicopter is often scrambled when an aircraft is lasered. They too are frequently targeted, but on board are highly sensitive cameras and real-time tracking equipment that can identify the culprits from some distance away so police on the ground can arrest them. In one case last year, a man wielding a laser at an aircraft was jailed for six months.
