A commercial airline pilot said that a laser beam entered the cockpit of his plane for several seconds on Monday, while it was 8,500 feet in the air. Air traffic controllers determined that the source of the laser came from a neighborhood in Warrensville Heights, near Cleveland. The FBI is investigating. And in September, a Delta pilot's eye was injured from a laser beam while he was landing a plane in Salt Lake City. Here's the LA Times article about this.
I'm wondering if the idiots who are doing this are using lasers like the ones sold at Lasershoppe.com. Wow: I just went to lasershoppe to read more about the $600 lasers the site sells (which can burn holes through plastic cups, and I learned that they are no longer selling lasers because they don't want to have anything to do with people who would use their lasers maliciously. They link to a CNN article that says six commercial jets have had their cockpits illuminated by laser beams in the last four days. (Photo by Phillip Torrone)
UPDATE: Patricio Lopez sez: A while ago the Ask the Pilot colum at Salon dealt with the whole lase threat issue. Excerpt:
For the record, even a well-aimed laser would be highly unlikely to cause a crash. Hitting both pilots cleanly in the face, through a refractive wraparound windshield, would require a great deal of luck, and even a temporarily blinded crew would still have the means to avoid disaster. Do not equate the results of a laser strike with, for example, having to drive sightless through a busy intersection. Maintaining a jet's stability would be challenging under the circumstances, but not impossible.
