[Laser] Laser Pointer Incident Forces Emergency Landing of USCG Surveillance Jet

[bernieS]

While it could be a distraction to a jet crew member, how could a 
"handheld laser pointer" beam that has diverged over a distance of 
many thousands of feet to a jet flying overhead possibly cause any 
retinal damage, or require an emergency landing and hospitalization 
of that crew member?

Even this FAA/USAF video admits, "In the scenario of cockpit laser 
illuminations, permanent physical damage to the eye is highly 
unlikely.  The lasers involved in cockpit laser strikes, for the most 
part, will not cause physical damage to the eye due to variables such 
as length of exposure, intensity, and/or 
proximity." 
http://www.laserpointersafety.com/page52/2009FAAvideo/2009FAAvideo.html

It seems to me that government authorities continue to grossly 
misrepresent the facts and actual risk of retinal damage in these 
laser pointer incidents.  This could erroneously lead to crackdowns 
on amateur LASER DX experimentation.

-bernieS


http://www.hstoday.us/channels/us-coast-guard/single-article-page/laser-incident-forces-emergency-landing-of-coast-guard-jet.html

Laser Incident Forces Emergency Landing of Coast Guard Jet

By: Mickey McCarter
11/07/12

A crew member onboard a US Coast Guard (USCG) HU-25 Guardian aircraft 
flying over Portland, Texas was hospitalized after being struck in 
the eyes by a handheld laser pointer, the agency said Tuesday.

The Dassault Falcon 20 jet, manufactured by French company Dassault 
Aviation, was forced to make an emergency landing Monday as it 
approached Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi, the Coast Guard 
said. The Coast Guard employs the medium-range surveillance aircraft 
for search and rescue, illegal drug interdiction, environmental 
protection and other missions.

"Whether this happened to our Coast Guard aircraft flying on a search 
and rescue mission, a student Navy pilot just learning to fly, or an 
airliner carrying a plane full of passengers, the public needs to be 
aware of the dangers associated with pointing a laser at any 
aircraft," USCG Lt. Philip Thisse, the commander of the affected 
aircraft, said in a statement.

Thisse added, "The laser directly hit one of our crewmembers while 
conducting an instrument approach and it filled the cockpit with a 
blinding light. We had to conduct an emergency landing and one of our 
crewmembers was sent to the Bay Area Emergency Room. Either malicious 
or just an irresponsible act, lasing an aircraft poses a significant 
hazard to the lives of aircrew and impacts our ability to respond to 
people in distress."

The crewmember, who suffered "temporary vision impairment," is 
expected to make a full recovery.

The Coast Guard has faced a number of lasing incidents this year. 
This was the third overall interference of air operations at Coast 
Guard Air Station Corpus Christi since June.

On Aug. 8, the Coast Guard reported a helicopter aircrew was blinded 
by a green laser while conducting surveillance to uncover the source 
of emergency flares near Garden City Beach, SC. That attack was the 
third in three weeks experienced by USCG aircraft in the Grand 
Strand, a beach resort area stretching from Little River, SC, to 
Georgetown, SC.

USCG Sector Charleston sent a boat from Coast Guard Station 
Georgetown to carry on the search after the helicopter was forced to 
land around 1:45am that morning. As the boat was not as fast as the 
helicopter, the search was delayed for about two hours.

Lasing incidents in the Grand Strand have numbered so high that the 
Coast Guard has deemed it "very high risk."

Congress acted this year to officially criminalize lasing attacks on 
government and commercial aircraft. Section 311 of the Federal 
Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 
(Public Law 112-95), signed by President Barack Obama on Feb. 14, 
made it a federal offense to aim a laser pointer at an aircraft in US 
airspace. Offenders face a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison.

The FAA reported a 902 percent increase in lasing incidents from 2005 to 2011.