L@ser attacks on Aircraft

[10002level]

rokami93,

Should this thug be located elsewhere it may be better for the aviation world as he is currently under the approach for Manchester - or at least he would be were he not residing as a guest of Her Majesty

However, that was not really my point. My parents are both elderly and I do not relish the idea of such a person living nearby. You will no doubt understand this when you are a little more mature.

[Admiral346]

ChristiaanJ

fine post!

Nic

[assymetricdrift]

Ok, here is a slightly strange one. I don't believe that it is a l@ser, but this has happened to me three times in the last week or so.

But on descent into Newcastle, we have been caught by a couple of quite bright torch beams, which managed to catch us at around 12000 feet. The lights themselves are not like l@sers, and are actually looking like searchlights. They are not green.

However, they do trace us as we are flying into Newcastle - today the light was being shone into the flightdeck for a good couple of minutes. However, we have reported these incidents a couple of times to ATC. It's very strange though... I don't know who they are or what they are playing at - but in my mind, it's not like the previous l@ser attacks I have encountered.

[AmishUFO]

WOMAN IN Murrysville Pa shining lasers at pilots as they land

I need your help people. There is a woman in Murrysville Pa who is posting videos of herself attacking landing airplanes with lasers and high intensity lamps(18 million lumens). She has posted videos of herself doing this and I happened upon it and it has just gotten me extremely angry. She believes these lights in teh sky are UFOs when in fact they are small planes or jetplanes which are trying to land in one of the 7 airports in her area. The woman is insane and she needs to be stopped ASAP.

I come to you to ask for your advice. HOW DO I GO ABOUT REPORTING HER? I need expert help before this woman gets people killed. Her name is ALison Kruse and she is all over Youtube bragging about how she zaps the aliens with laser and high intensity lamps.

below I attached the link of excerps of her very own video. The video was posted by anotehr youtuber and it basically shows this woman doing the unthinkable along with her daughter. Her very own words betray her. In other videos she has herself shining the high intensity lamps at the airplanes.

YouTube - UFO- MORESEEINGUFOSPA (ALISON) BUSTED POINTING A LASER AT PLANES IN HER AREA:


ALl I ask is for your help.
THANK YOU.

[anonythemouse]

Watched the video, saw the plane, heard the instructions but didn't see a single laser in use. Another UFO hoax methinks! The video clearly calls for it to be sent to the FAA. Why? If the maker has the video and have had it long enough to edit it with subtitles there would be no need to get others to submit it, unless they were attempting to coerce people into swamping the FAA system with it!

[AmishUFO]

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a lady on Youtube who is activily attacking our pilots with all kinds of lasers. She has video taped herself and she has no intensions of stopping. Please join me in putting an end to her crazy activity by reporting her to the proper authorities.

here is the link. You will be amazed.

YouTube - UFO- Alison Kruse(MoreSeeingUFOsPA)"LASER ATTACK" compilation.

The originals are all over Youtube. As you can see this is a compilation. This individual has been activily shining airplanes in her area for about a year and she films herself to boot. Recently it has been discovered where she lives and now the reports are being files. We need teh aviation community to rally around this one case. This arrogant woman tags planes as they are on appraoch to one of the 5 airports near her. She does this under the pretense that there is a UFO invasion of the woods by her house. THIS WOMAN IS A DANGER TO THE PILOTS OF THE AREA AND HAS TO BE STOPPED.

Below is an orginal video unaltered.
YouTube - Laser - Triangle UFO Transformer 9-24-09 Seen by Many by Pittsburgh.mp4

I want to also say that this woman now knows that we are reporting her and as a result she has pulled all her videos regarding lasers but not before we downloaded them and reported her. She now engages in truth suppression and is activily flagging the videos as soon as we post them. It is too late for her regarding the FAA but her case should make national news. She is an arrogant woman who believes she is doing nothing wrong. MY GOD!

[Yenaldlooshi]

Green LASER

The common green DPSS diode laser is emitting @ 532 nm; near the peak frequency of the Human eye. Fortunately most juveniles can't afford the more powerful devices, and the <5mw pointers, other than being a temporary distraction will produce no permanent damage to the eye. As far as your night vision where flying is concerned, it's going out the window, and can produce temporary blindness. Inside the 5mi. airport boundary on short final @ 130 kts or so, things happen very fast and if you get nailed coming out of the cloud bases on a 200 & a 1/2 inst approach you are going to have a difficult time at touchdown or executing a miss. The autopilot set for a miss is the safest way after getting hit.

A second crewmember helps, a luxury most single engine light AC don't have. I think I would be more concerned in today's atmosphere of terrorism that something else may be following the beam. ...Such as a rifle projectile! Some folks have been removing the freq. conversion crystal from these cheap green lasers and they then emit a 808 NM beam in the IR and can fry your eye quickly as the power level is MUCH higher when unconverted and unfiltered and at the most dangerous frequency range to the Human eye.

I suffered a Laser burn on the retina from scattering of an Excimer (Exciplex) UV Laser during a legitimate medical lab ablation experiment back in the 1970's and the small burn spot is still there! It was a light leak (defect) in my laser goggles.

Improperly aimed and controlled, this high power UV laser could burn a hole through your eye and the back of your head!

I once watched an IR 10.6 micron flowing gas CW (continuous wave) Co2 laser being fired for the 1st time at a lab in So. Cal at Union Carbide's KORAD Division in the mid 60's. It burned through the MANY multiple layers of refractory firebrick backstop, the back cement brick wall of the building, and completely through a cars body and transmission in the parking lot to scatter and dissipate in an empty field behind the building. It only was rated at 10kw, small by today's standards. Fortunately, not many can afford that kind of Laser horsepower, but it's out there!

Some Jihadist Flash Gordon moron will no doubt try to cut an aircraft in two at some point if they can get the equipment together. Actually you can build a very powerful cutting laser for a couple hundred bucks and some junk off the scrap pile.

P.S. I'm still able to get a 1st class medical though and 16500 turbine hours later, still have no problem passing the eye exam.

Check out these guys. Red, Blue, Green Laser Pointer and Torch Flashlight - Wicked Lasers Perpetrators of Mayhem.

[Yenaldlooshi]

Bright Shining Woman (must be her Native American Apache name)

A woman in possession of a room temperature IQ.
A candidate for retroactive abortion.

Quick! ...Somebody! ....Put more chlorine in the gene pool!

[Yenaldlooshi]

HID

What you're seeing is most likely an HID flashlight. HID is for High Intensity Discharge, and they put out massive amounts of Luminous flux (light) for substantial distances. It's a metal vapor high pressure inert gas arc lamp (NO filament) in a flashlight running on a Li Ion battery pack. Commonly referred to as "tactical flashlights" and used by SpecOps types, and the cops.

I bought a cheapie ($150) on eBay and at 24 watts/1400 lumens, 4300k (bright sunlight) and quick rechargeable to boot, it will light up a road sign like noon in the Sahara over a 1/2 mile away. You can get some that are super bright, kinda like your own portable neutron star if you can handle the price. It's great for that midnight walkaround preflight on an AC with a tail 30+ feet in the air, cavernous engine intakes,(to make sure no Hobo squatter has moved in to take up residence), or dark and funky wheel wells, tires & brakes. Beats the hell out of my battery inhaling halogen light.

"I love the smell of Hydraulic fluid and Jet-A in the morning" ...It smells like ...high flight.

I wonder if they make a pilot cologne?

P.S. I have nothing against Hobo's, I guess to be politically correct, I should say "Residentialy Challenged".

[talking horse]

Re: Laser(?) at NCL

Assymmetric Drift,

I think I have seen the same myself. I don't think it is a laser, but I believe it is part of a Christmas decoration (no, really) on Bishop Auckland (I think) Town Hall. It appears to be a bright white focussed light beam that revolves and pitches up and down. It was certainly there a couple of years ago.

Having said that, I have been illuminated by a laser while on finals to NCL 07 green laser from the right. We reported it, but I heard no more.

TH

[AnthonyGA]

Some Jihadist Flash Gordon moron will no doubt try to cut an aircraft in two at some point if they can get the equipment together. Actually you can build a very powerful cutting l@ser for a couple hundred bucks and some junk off the scrap pile.

Unfortunately, it isn't even necessary to build one yourself any more. The Chinese ZM-87 is a compact laser weapon designed specifically to blind people at distances of up to two miles. Rumor has it that this was the weapon used against the pilot and passenger of a surveillance helicopter in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1997. The pilot was permanently grounded due to eye damage, and his passenger suffered laser burns as well. Supposedly this weapon is no longer manufactured. You can find a few photos on the Web.

[assymetricdrift]

Talkinghorse,

Yeah, we reported it to ATC - but there appears to be one on the left hand side of the aircraft too, as well as Bishop Auckland. However, it was a little bit distracting, and neither of us could work out if it was just a decoration or following us around the sky.

07? That's a new one to me - I've been caught several times on 25 from the South Shields area! I'll have an ask to someone I know in the tower and see what the status is on the lasers at the moment. Glad to know though that I'm not the only one who hasn't heard a thing about reported l@ser attacks since reporting them. Hopefully they've caught the perpetrators now - I haven't heard of many recently.

Cheers!, AD

[joeflyguy]

What is bizarre is that in New Zealand a f@cktard with the IQ of a dead jellyfish was caught and arrested for shining a laser into the cockpits of aircraft about to land at Wellington airport. He was doing this when the aircraft were approx. only hundreds of metres from landing.

He ended up before a judge who moderately threw the book at him; no it did not entail jail time but was sending a strong message. Sadly this dickwads lawyer appealed and a new judge felt that the sentence was doing some harm to this poor misguided individual - after all its not as if anything happened or he shot the aircraft or anything did he - and reduced it to a very minor fine.

The judges need regular competency tests like pilots.

[tflier]

Flying into TFS last week, at night, the Jet2 B757 ahead of us reported being targeted by a green laser while on base leg for the easterly R/W. Fortunately they missed us.

[jayteeto]

Our aircraft was targeted this week, the offender was tracked and caught. He was given 'a stern warning'

[Finn47]

A new law has been introduced in the UK, making it a specific offence to shine a laser at an aircraft, which will make it easier to get convictions.

The Press Association: Shining lights at planes an offence under new law

[R04stb33f]

From the BBC News website

Massive 25-fold rise in people shining l@sers at planes

Cheers

Rich

[ix_touring]

There's a news item about lasers on BBC London News tonight (in the next 10 mins or so!).

iX

[Legalapproach]

Post 82, September 2008:

Prison sentence upheld for l@zer louts *
Some of you may recall a recent thread concerning two oafs who had targeted a l@zer pen at a police helicopter. They came before HH Judge Tudor Owen at Snaresbrook Crown Court who sentenced them to six months custody.
The Court of Appeal recently considered their appeals and dismissed them observing that in the view of their Lordships the case clearly crossed the custody threshold and such a case could not be dealt with by any lesser penalty.
The Court further observed that His Honour Judge Owen "plainly took a great deal of care over this case." In passing sentence the learned judge said the message should go out that people who target helicopters in this idiotic and dangerous way should expect to receive custodial sentences.
"In our judgment the learned judge was right to make it clear that custodial sentences will usually follow when offenders committing this offence are caught*."

CAA Press Release 9th April 2009:

"Laser louts to be targeted in new campaign"
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is today launching a campaign to tackle the growing problem of lasers being maliciously directed at aeroplanes and helicopters, which can cause a significant safety risk. The move follows a dramatic rise in the number of incidents of pilots being distracted by lasers during critical phases of flight. During 2008 a total of 206 cases were reported to the CAA, compared with only 29 in 2007.
"There have already been a number of successful prosecutions in the UK with offenders receiving custodial sentences, and the new campaign aims to highlight the penalties that they face."
Bob Jones, Head of Flight Operations at the CAA, said: “To those individuals targeting aircraft with laser devices the message is clear – don’t. You will be caught and you will be prosecuted and *you could spend up to five years in prison*.”

CAA Press Release 12th Jan 2010:

"New powers to tackle aircraft laser crime introduced"
A new law that makes shining a light or laser at an aircraft a specific criminal offence has been introduced. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which initiated the new law, said it was in response to the growing number of incidents involving laser devices being shone at airliners and helicopters near British airports.
Previously, anyone caught shining a laser at an aircraft may have been charged with ‘recklessly endangering an aircraft’. Offenders may now be charged with ‘shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot’, which it is expected will increase the conviction rate.
The CAA said that distracting or dazzling a pilot with a light or laser represented a serious safety risk.
The numbers of reported incidents of this type have increased 25 times in only two years. In 2009 there were a total of 737 attacks with lasers on commercial airliners, air ambulances and police helicopters across the UK, a considerable increase on the 29 incidents in 2007. Although there have been around a dozen successful prosecutions so far, many more arrests are expected as police air support units roll out new technology to catch offenders.
Bob Jones, Head of Flight Operations at the CAA, said “This new criminal charge will strengthen the hand of law enforcement agencies in their efforts to tackle this problem. I advise individuals who may think shining a laser at an aircraft is a bit of fun, to think again. The chances of getting caught are increasing rapidly and, once caught, criminal charges are now inevitable."
The malicious use of lasers against aircraft has become a global problem in recent years with large numbers of incidents reported in the USA, Australia and Canada. 737 in the UK in 2009.

So -

• A serious safety risk
• A dramatic increase in reported incidents (x 25 in only two years)
  • 2007: 29
  • 2008: 206
  • 2009: 737
• A Judge says the message should go out that people who target helicopters in this idiotic and dangerous way should expect to receive custodial sentences.
• The Court of Appeal says the Judge was right.

And was does the CAA/DfT do?
Introduce a specific offence to deal with the problem:
- That gives the courts no power to impose custodial sentences!!!
- And even limits the maximum fine that can be imposed to £2500.
- Triable in the Magistrates Courts only - not by Judges in the Crown Court.


*"Offenders may now be charged with ‘shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot’, which it is expected will increase the conviction rate."*
"Increase the conviction rate"?
How many (if any) laser louts prosecuted under the old law (Endangering) have not been convicted? As far as I know: None!

The courts used to impose fines when lasers attacks were relatively rare.
When they became much more prevalent and a serious problem in the past couple of years, the courts sensibly imposed more severe punishments and started sending people to prison.
This new offence takes us back to fines!

[fulham fan]

legal approach - it is the Government (DfT) not the CAA that defines max penalties etc for UK aviation laws