Dennis
There are other threads which have more details of laser attacks and responses by law enforcement to aircraft being lasered.
Bottom line is that these "attacks" have been happening for years and to date not a single aircraft has crashed because it was targetted by a civilian laser pointer.
The military have access to more powerful lasers and technically could down an aircraft, although use of lasers in warfare to cause blindness is supposed to be forbidden under the Geneva Convention. Any laser powerful enough to cut through metal would cause physical injury to a pilot. Apart from experimental proof of concept tests against drone targets, such systems have not been used to date.
Green lasers appear subjectively brighter than other colours because the eye is most responsive (sensitive) to the wavelength of green light.
Any very bright and sharply focused beam of light can cause confusion and disorientation in a darkened cockpit at night. It does not need to be a laser specifically.
It is unlikely that a ground based laser pointer will cause permanent damage to the eyesight of a pilot even if looked at directly. The blink reflex protects the eyes and the power over distance ratio is too low to physically damage retinal cells. A victim looking directly at a particularly bright laser will suffer a period of after images which could last from several minutes to a couple of days.
Direct exposure to 100 mW level laser beams in a laboratory enviornment will cause temporary blindness but the damage is usually restricted to a very few retinal cells because the lens in the eye focusses the beam to a very small point at the back of the eye. A small black spot in the vision field will result, which will generally go unnoticed a short while after recovering from exposure.
Exceptional or repeated exposure can result in multiple sites of retinal damage which will not recover and will increasingly cause a deterioration of vision. Corneal burns can occur, similar to getting sunburn on the surface of the eye. Laser exposure can also lead to the formation of cataracts due to heating damage to the lens of the eye as the laser beam passes through.
These are exceptional injuries and should never happen in a modern optics laboratory as protective eyewear should be worn at all times and safety interlocks and beam blockers and absorbers should be in place except when the laser is actually required. The first lesson all students are taught is never to place any part of their body in the path of laser light, irrespective of the power of the beam.
Being targetted by laser pointer is an uncomfortable experience that is more of an annoyance than a direct physical threat. It has the potential to make a difficult situation more hazardous but as mentioned before, there appears to be no recorded case of civilian aircraft loss or damage anywhere in the world that can be attributed to a laser pointer attack.
The hysteria surrounding this subject is somewhat overblown in my opinion, but many victims of such attacks will violently disagree and given the potential consequences with regard to loss of life and property damage, they may be right to do so.