For all the discussion here back and forth about what type of laser it was, it does seem to be a real event:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595094973,00.html
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Laser beam injures eye of Delta pilot
Incident occurs as airliner is getting ready to land in Salt Lake
By Jennifer Dobner
Deseret Morning News
_ _ _ Federal transportation officials and FBI agents are trying to determine the source of a laser beam that illuminated the cockpit of a Delta Air Lines plane last week, damaging the eye of a pilot.
_ _ _ The incident occurred Sept. 22 as a Dallas-to-Salt Lake City Boeing 737 was about five miles from landing at the Salt Lake City International Airport. The pilot and first officer told officials of the Transportation Security Administration that the light was visible in the cockpit, with the first officer later reporting he felt a burning sensation in one eye. A doctor confirmed the man had suffered retinal damage.
_ _ _ The plane, however, landed without incident and nothing unusual was reported to airport officials, airport spokeswoman Barbara Gann said.
_ _ _ Local TSA investigators and FBI agents are investigating the incident along with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI special agent Bob Wright said.
_ _ _ "We are right in the middle of trying to ascertain what caused this to happen," said Wright. "We look at it from a number of places, with pilot safety being our number one concern, passenger safety being number two and the general public safety our third priority."
_ _ _ TSA director Earl Morris said this is the first such incident to be investigated in the Salt Lake area.
_ _ _ Whether or not the incident could be an act of terrorism or simply a prank remains to be seen, officials said.
_ _ _ "We're not ruling anything out," Morris said.
_ _ _ Delta officials in Atlanta confirmed the incident but said little else. Company spokeswoman Tanya Dunne said she did not know the pilot's name, nor did she know anything about his present medical condition.
_ _ _ Lasers are readily available to consumers for a variety of purposes, from simple low-powered penlight type pointers used in business presentations to higher-powered devices used for medical, construction or entertainment purposes such as light shows.
_ _ _ Astronomy buffs use lasers when star gazing because the long reach of the beams makes it easier for the human eye to identify features in the night sky, said Ken Warner, a software engineer who is a member of the Salt Lake Astrological Society.
_ _ _ Those lasers are typically red or green. The green models are the brighter and more powerful of the two, with a potential beam reach of up to 25,000 feet, Warner said.
_ _ _ The laser beam seen by the pilots last week was green, officials said.
_ _ _ "One could potentially reach (airline) altitude," Warner said.
_ _ _ Scientific research work is also being done in Utah with the help of high-powered lasers, Utah State University professor Vincent Wickwar said. For nearly a dozen years at USU, a high-powered beam has been measuring the atmospheric temperatures above the university's Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences. A second laser is atop the Space Dynamics Lab at the school, and Wickwar said lasers are in use at the University of Utah and at the Dugway Proving Ground. Wickwar's laser has a vertical-only reach of about 60 miles and wasn't in use when the Delta incident occurred.
_ _ _ "It's nothing that we could have been involved in," he said, adding that the potential dangers from a laser are real. "Basically the eye will focus on that . . . yes, there is a possibility of doing damage."
_ _ _ Federal Aviation Administration officials are well aware of the potential dangers. A 2001 report by the FAA's Western-Pacific Region indicated that from January 1996 through July 1999, there were more than 150 incidents of low-flying planes being illuminated with lasers. In a number of those incidents, pilots suffered some visual impairment.
_ _ _ Pilots are not overly concerned about such lights in the sky, said Mike Dunn, a Salt Lake-based Delta pilot who is also the spokesman for the Salt Lake chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association. Lasers first came to their attention a few years ago, when lasers became commonly used for promotional purposes along the Las Vegas Strip.
_ _ _ "It was not necessarily blinding, but distracting, and it turns out those things were high-powered lasers," Dunn said.
_ _ _ Still, lasers are not frequently a topic of conversation or concern, Dunn said. In flights Dunn has made in the past week, flight crews were not discussing the Sept. 22 incident, and Dunn said he first heard about it through media reports.
_ _ _ "On a daily basis, (pilots) don't concern ourselves with that sort of threat," he said. "It's one of several we face in the cockpit, but it's not high on the list. My take on it would be that what happened the other day was probably a prank."
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[Has anyone here checked with Delta to confirm the report?]