$10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide

coondoggie writes: "The FBI today said it was making national a pilot program it tried out in 12 locations earlier this year that offers up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft. According to the FBI, the pilot locations have seen a 19% decrease in the number of reported laser-to-aircraft incidents. Those locations included: Albuquerque, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Philadelphia."

huh

[Charliemopps]

You'd think they'd have just put polarized glass in the cockpit by now if it were that big of a deal. Oh wait... that's right, it's not that big of a deal.

Why do we continue to allow things like this to get blown so far out of proportion that we end up sending 16yr olds to prison for something that never really had a chance to do harm to anyone in the first place? A landing aircraft is moving faster than freeway traffic at it's slowest. Without computer control and actuators there is no way a person could, by hand, hold a laser on a cockpit window for more than a tenth of a second. If a pilot is unable to land a plane after a flash of light that brief, we'd better start making lightening illegal because it's a hell of a lot brighter, and more common than a laser strike.

Re:Off the Flight Path...

[MozeeToby]

[...]offers up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft.

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Fear mongering does not need to be rational, this is citizen training so that they hear and see how rewarding it can be to turn in people for cash.

Re: huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove it. Can you name one instance where an aircraft was brought down by someone shining a laser pointer at it? I wanna read an actual NTSB report that says pilot blindness caused by an ordinary retail store bought laser pointer located on the ground resulted in a subsequent crash. There's no such thing.

Re:huh

[dinfinity]

QFT, last year I sat in the cockpit during an evening landing in Egypt (Sharm-el-sheik) and where I had previously dismissed the whole pointing lasers thing, that landing quickly brought me around. Granted, pilots generally land on the instruments anyway, but looking out the windows was certainly not an option anymore because of the effect the laser pointers had on the canopy.

One of the things I had always wondered (and asked the pilots) was 'Who would do such a thing? What do they gain from it?' until we were walking around in the (touristic) city centre at night. Tons of shops that sold massively overpowered laser pointers and more importantly: lots of small kids waving those things around.

Re:Off the Flight Path...

[gweihir]

Laser advertising needs special permissions and is either focused at a billboard, wall, etc, or if aimed at the sky under permanent direct control of an expert and only permissible with similar restrictions as fireworks. Your question is stupid.

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

and what about the rotary winged aircraft (helicopters) where normally it would be incredibly hard to polarize such complex glass surfaces. Those aircraft also fly closer to the ground meaning that the flash of light is much more intense. they also are not normally moving at speed and hovering making it easier to aim said light at the cockpit and longer flashes of laser light can blind or ruin a pilots career.

Way to jump to conclusions. every think why New York City was a pilot location? if you read the fbi site it even mentions helicopters..

also consider that up there there isnt as much ambient light as down here. so when even a momentary flash of intense light down here may not cause such huge a problem, up in the air where the pilots pupils are fully dialiated it can be even worse.

do some research on the issue before you jump to conclusions.. or better yet go fly an aircraft (fixed or rotary wing)

Re:Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! Man, I'm so glad we live in a society where rape is funny! Good stuff!

Re:Does a laser pointer have any noticeable effect

[RandCraw]

Yep. Precisely how many planes has any laser brought down so far? Have lasers become a standard military weapon yet? If so I'd expect to see Al Caida and the Taliban routinely using laser pointers to crash US aircraft. But oddly enough, we don't...

Let's get real. Is a laser pointer a mile away going to disable both of a pilots eyes? AND both of a copilot's eyes? And how long were you blinded when a supermarket checkout scanner laser last caught your eye? Did you crash your shopping cart? Did you call in the FBI?

This mountain is such a molehill. It makes me wonder why the FBI is overselling this schtick so hard. It's easier than working for a living, I guess.

A first-hand perspective for the doubters

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an airline pilot who has been lased three times, and I'm probably one of the only pilots in the country to have also earned a degree as a laser technician. With these credentials I was chosen to represent my airline at the ALPA Laser Illumination Conference in 2011. http://laserconference.alpa.or... [alpa.org] The threat is real. It's easy to dismiss it as a "what are the odds" type of event, but the truth is that it happens far too frequently. People can buy these 1+ watt diode lasers very easily online and do with them what they will, and they frequently choose to point them at airplanes. What does it look like in the cockpit? Pretty much like an intense green strobe effect. And the worst thing is that once the light is seen the first time it's human instinct to look out the window to try and find the cause of the flash. Then the second blast hits as the pilot is looking directly at it. Depending on altitude and beam divergence, there's a real possibility of permanent eye damage. The lower to the ground, the more likely the damage. At night a pilot's vision is kept adapted to the ambient light in the cockpit, so their pupils are dilated to allow more light in. This also increases likelihood of damage. Flash blindness can last for many minutes, and it's a very bad thing to have your pilots flash blinded. It is a real issue, and having personally experienced it, I can say it's a problem.

Re:huh

[Charliemopps]

http://www.usnews.com/news/art... [usnews.com]

14yrs in prison. Most people in prison for HOMICIDE serve half that.

This is the definition of unfair sentencing .

Re:huh

[Obfuscant]

14yrs in prison.

Good. You picked a perfect example of your "young and stupid" "pre-pubescent" teenager here. A 26 year old deliberately trying to down a police helicopter, and his twenty-something girlfriend, who were probably the same source of the laser used to attack a hospital transport helicopter that the police were looking for.

Most people in prison for HOMICIDE serve half that.

Citation required, and so what? He was trying to kill a cop. Deliberately. After trying to kill people who fly in a hospital helicopter.

This is the definition of unfair sentencing .

I think it is quite fair. It will send a message that doing this kind of thing isn't a game to people like you who think that all it takes is "polarizing filters" installed on every aircraft so "pre-pubescent teens" can have their fun interfering with the pilots of aircraft, who have no real complaint because there aren't rampant stories about blind pilots and aircraft "falling out of the sky". (Free clue: if a pilot is blinded by a laser and his aircraft "falls out of the sky" and he dies in the subsequent crash, who is going to tell the NTSB the crash took place because of the laser? How many passengers have to go down with him before protecting pilots from temporary blindness from idiots is a good idea in your mind?)

The story here is about expanding the use of $10,000 REWARDS (not fines) to help catch people who endanger innocent people. I guess, since you didn't answer the question, you really don't understand the difference between "reward" and "fine", or how polarizing filters work, and that the idea of temporary blindness for a pilot in command of an aircraft isn't a problem for you.