Laser injures Delta pilot's eye
 

"A pilot flying a Delta Air Lines jet was injured by a laser that illuminated the cockpit of the aircraft as it approached Salt Lake City International Airport last week, U.S. officials said. "


http://washingtontimes.com/national/...1356-3924r.htm

A pattern may be developing here, I hope someone is taking notice in the UK.....

See Here: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=140569

Could the manufacturers of Aircraft Windscreens not develop a coating that would disperse Laser light that was aimed at a cockpit.

Boeing can't even build a decent sun shade for their flight deck windows, they have no chance for a laser disperser!

:}

Here's a couple of posts off another board from a few days before the incident. These folks are laser "hobbyists" and one of them was bragging about "dotting" aircraft with an illegal (i.e. > 5mw) laser.

Posted September 18:

>>While I'm sure that looked really cool, please be careful about dotting airplanes. That could make the gummint really angry...<<

>>yes, i know...but i probably wont do it again...i just wanted to see if my laser was actually capable of dotting an airplane, like many people advertise. and, now i know that it's possible...i no longer need to prove anything.<<

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubb...=365&fpart=all


A few somewhat more incriminating posts were removed earlier by the Candlepower Forums moderator.

These high power lasers are quite easy to buy online, for example:

"Hand held battery system up to 200 milliwatts of continuous optical power. Use for serious special effects star pointing, optical intimidation and experimentation. Includes a colliminator for ultra long range effect."

from: http://www.amazing1.com/green-lasers.htm

"Build a burning laser system using our sealed CO2 laser tube with special cooling. High efficiency current controlled power supply delivers over 100 watts of power to this directed energy beam device. Excellent demonstration of future weapons technology."

"Not only is the device a workhorse in welding, cutting and heat processing materials but it also is a likely candidate as an effective directed energy beam weapon against missiles, aircraft, ground-to- ground, etc..."

from: http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

I'm really confused about the physics of lasers causing harm after passing through glass. Richard Feynman was so sure that high energy photons could not hurt his eyes, that he watched the first? Atomic explosion through a lorry windshield.

Is anyone an expert on this topic?

Loose Rivets
If you loook at my previous reply in this thread
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=140569
I have tried to explain some facts about lasers.
I have worked on Lasers since 1978 military,medical and now industrial so have some experience.
Lasers can be absorbed by glass but that tends to be only those in around the 10.6 micrometer bandwith e.g. CO2 lasers.
Glass tends to let through most other bandwidths especially those in the visible spectrum eg Argon blue/green light and Krypton red light.
Contrary to what Airbubba says 200mW is not high powered enough to get up to an airplane tho this level is used in Opthalmic lasers to treat diabetics by a procedure called diabetic retinopathy and exposures of only 0.1 - 0.2 s to weld up leaky blood vessels within the eye.
Unfotunately old scientific lasers of upto 30W power in the visible spectrum are also available to joe public and with the right optics and a bit of knowledge could easily illuminate a airplane cockpit and cause eye damage.
IMHO these Laser systems should have a restriction on who can buy them.eg a licence.

>>Contrary to what Airbubba says 200mW is not high powered enough to get up to an airplane <<

Really? I guess all the folks "dotting" planes don't know that. Maybe the gravity makes the photons fall before they get that high...

Although I wouldn't normally come back to a remark Airbubba's has to be the most crass I've seen in a long time.

1.If indeed
this is happening around your area maybe Cleatus the slack jawed yokel isn't that far behind.There must certainly be a lot of morons there.Duuuuh I'm just goin outside to paint me a plane with this laser I got from e-bay.

If you maybe knew just a smidgen about our atmosphere you will notice that we do not live in a pure vacuum.The air we breathe has all sorts of bits in it most of them not conducive for laser light transmission from a cheap e-bay 200mW laser with poor optics.
How close are these ' folks' to the planes???
Do not try to compare cheap lasers with the ones they use in light shows either.These are high powered with top quality optics.

>>this is happening around your area maybe Cleatus the slack jawed yokel isn't that far behind.There must certainly be a lot of morons there.<<

Yep, you sound like a real expert...

Anyway, the light from the little red and green aircraft nav lights somehow makes it through the mysterious atmosphere all the way to the ground. Wonder why that laser light just stops dead in its tracks? I'm sure us ignorant folks over here wouldn't understand your brilliant personal theories on coherent light propagation <g>.

>>How close are these ' folks' to the planes???

In some cases less than a thousand feet, near the airport boundary under an approach path.

Airbubba
Suppose I must be thankful that I worked for the oldest laser company in the world(American for 17 yrs)and I was "expert " enough to be sent worldwide.
Now working on a system(US) and there are only 6 systems worldwide.4 US 2 UK......Expert enough??????? Or do I need one of your $20 degrees available thro e-bay?
As I said Slack jawed yokels who stand
shining their pretty little lasers at planes....Grow up BTW and tell the yokels the same thing.

lasernigel might be right saying that 200 mW laser power is not too dangerous a few 1000 ft away from the laser source

However, i'd rather argue that most lasers have an opening angle as well. That's very similar to that flash light in your cockpit but a laser has an opening angle which is very small. Nevertheless, being some distance away you'll notice and that laser spot is no longer a 1mm spot but rather an illuminated disk of maybe 0.5 meter radius. Hence the power per area becomes rather small. (But might still hurt the eye; but the eye reflex should give sufficient protection.)

@Loose rivets
Good ol' Dick Feynman was a great and clever physicist but I, too, believe he was wrong here. :rolleyes:
Bright light CAN damage your eyes, just look at all those fools staring into the sun before and after a total ecclipse of the sun without special glasses, hurting themselves despite all warnings in the media.
I figured that Feynman didn't know anything about lasers then, because they haven't been invented back in 1945. By the way, it's the number of photons - the intensity - that counts, not their energy. :D

EoD

Like I said, this guy sounds like a real expert...

Airbubba
You just had to have a final cheap shot didn't you!
Try a dept of 3 engs with 2 BSc's 1 MSc all in applied physics and laser technology and a total of over 50 years on lasers between us.Good enough??

Either way this should be treated with the seriousness it deserves,and maybe next time you see someone having a giggle pointing a laser at a plane round your way,point a pistol back and see how they like it.

>>lasernigel might be right saying that 200 mW laser power is not too dangerous a few 1000 ft away from the laser source<<

Yeah, maybe that was what he really meant to say when he said "...200mW is not high powered enough to get up to an airplane..."

>>Try a dept of 3 engs with 2 BSc's 1 MSc all in applied physics and laser technology and a total of over 50 years on lasers between us.Good enough??

Either way this should be treated with the seriousness it deserves,and maybe next time you see someone having a giggle pointing a laser at a plane round your way,point a pistol back and see how they like it.<<

He seems more than a little insecure with his own alleged credentials. Or maybe he just forgot his meds again with this nutty pistol talk. Perhaps another teen troll...

Whatever, I agree that even a "low power" low divergence class IIIb laser can be quite dangerous to the dark adapted eyes at less than a mile. The idea that the light won't "get up to an airplane" is utter nonsense.

now come on boys, no need to argue! although all this sarcasm flying about is very amuseing! i had a look at the link to the laser forum listed above, and on the whole they seem a pretty sensible bunch with a smattering of responsibility, except for one or two that seem a tad excited that they could point at a plane and light it. these few will screw it up for the enthusiasts who like to point at stars and try to hit clouds, and licensing probably will become necessary. but, they are all dribbling about the the powers avalable on ebay etc of around 20-40 to 100mw, so surely a 200mw laser will most certainly light up a flight deck from at least 1000ft? any comments children?:confused:

>>so surely a 200mw laser will most certainly light up a flight deck from at least 1000ft?<<

Yep, that would seem pretty obvious to most of us...

Laser Nigel
Thanks for info. If it had been anyone else but Richard Feynman I would have disregarded the statement: I'll try to relocate the article again. With a windshield as think as an aircraft's, and typically a metallic film with enough substance to carry heating current, I would still be surprised if an amateur could blind a pilot. Also, I would have thought the angle that would have to be used, would be difficult to attain.

Incidentally, in the case of diabetic retinopathy, what is the diameter of the beam at the retina? 'scuse the thread slippage.

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."


E-mail: [email protected]
---------------
[Has anyone here checked with Delta to confirm the report?]

There have been previous newspaper reports of pilots being momentarily dazzled by laser lights. In one case there was a stadium rock event going on that resulted in a complaint about the laser light show bothering a flight crew.

There doesn't seem to be any concerted effort to control this problem, just an event-by-event reaction. Combine that with the access that dedicated nerds have to obsolete high-tech gadgets and you have the makings of a serious future problem. GPS jammers, lasers, radio transmitters... there is a whole gamut of toys available to people with nothing better to do with their lives than cause trouble, perhaps not really meaning to.

Even here you can see that some of the people responding are ignoring the real problem to nit-pick the technical aspects of other replies. What, they wouldn't mind being in the back of an aircraft with a crew having vision problems?

I have noticed that those little laser pointers are on sale, along with the usual tasteful assortment of other goods for semi-morons, on filling station shelves. We had one of our number amusing himself by shining one in the eyes of the other barflies one evening in our 'pub'. Perhaps we must wait for a report of one being used in the cabin of an airliner by bored and boozed-up SLF. I asked to examine the object in question, which had the usual warning message about possible eye damage. I suggested that he put his little toy away lest he be made the subject of a complaint but that was about all I could do at the time.

All of this seems to be part of a general trend towards the development of technology by geniuses that then trickles down to be (mis-) used by the hoi polloi. I remember chatting with a fellow who had a brain the size of a planet; he had access to one of the only two lasers in the state of Maryland back in about 1973. Now any jerk can buy one off the shelf.

We used to have people just zapping themselves trying to clean dead Indians out of their TV sets back in the Fifties. Then there was that celebrated idiot who got hold of a military surplus JATO unit that he built into the boot of his car, winning himself a Darwin Award. Now we have people bragging about 'dotting' aircraft. What next? Well, we have had a couple of dedicated enthusiasts firing off Strelas at an Israeli 757, only narrowly missing due to lack of training. Thanks to extensive de-briefings from the technical press they have learned where they went wrong so that they will presumably try again. That was perhaps the most extreme example to date of military technology escaping proper control, but it won't be the last one. And there are various non-military but high-tech devices out there, such as lasers, that can pose serious threats to civil aviation. If there is some study group paying attention to this growing problem I am not aware of it.