Air New Zealand Pilot Blinded Briefly by Laser
Air New Zealand Airbus A320
An Air New Zealand pilot was blinded for a short time likely by someone pointing a laser at the airliner he was flying, according to police.
The incident occurred near Blenheim Airport in New Zealand last Monday:
‘The pilot of an Air New Zealand flight had a green laser beam hit him in his left eye as he flew over the town on the approach to landing about 6:30 PM on Monday, Blenheim police said.
The pilot was blinded in the one eye for a short time but was able to land without incident.
Two passengers on the flight also reported seeing the laser, which appeared to be coming from the Blenheim residential area.’
Police were unable to perform a search of the area as the incident was reported several hours later.
‘Shining a laser beam at an aircraft was an incredibly dangerous thing to do, Constable Michelle Stagg said.
“We take these sorts of things really seriously, and we are really keen to find out who was involved in doing this,” she told NZ Newswire.’
Category: Airnation
In the US, offenders can be put in jail for 20 years and pay a fine of $250,000. I hope the repercussions are similar in New Zealand. People have no clue how dangerous a laser pointer can be to pilots at altitude.
Catching a person shining a laser into an airliner cockpit is no easy task, and seldom are the perpetrators caught. Like it or not, the world has people in it who think it’s “fun” to laser an airliner , even though they may already know how dangerous it is.
What is needed are two things:
(1) a see-thru shield that the pilot/co-pilot can temporarily attach to the inside of their respiective side windows – a shield that would negate the dangers of a green-light laser. I don’t know if there exists any such thing on the market now. If not, someone should invent one.
(2) a laser detector on the underside of the airplane which would notate the time of a laser hit as well as a direction that the laser came from. This data, as well as that from the aircraft’s flight data recorder, could be used to locate the location of where the laser light originated… and possibly to the person(s) who did the deed.
I wonder if Air Force One has something like this. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has the capability to sense the laser and send out a missile to the person shining it! :D
Whatever exists for a laser encounter, I’m sure AF1 has it! I doubt a missile would be used – there exists the possibility of colateral damage to innocent people. There’s probably some sort of “star wars” device on the airplane that “returns fire” to the laser source location.
They could reply in type with the laser strike that the Airforce uses to shoot down ICBMs…