Bright Flashes from Dull Minds

What can they possibly be but juvenile cretins, involved in the pleasure they take from placing others at risk. Sociopaths out for a night of thrills, and nothing will get in the way of their planned frolic with danger. Setting danger in someone else's path, not their own. But thrilling to the powerful sense of mastery of the situation.

Armed with an innocent enough light probe, but one which is capable of bringing a mighty airplane down from the night-time skies. Not, needless to say, the inexpensive dollar-store variety of laser pens that people put on keychains, but the kind that can be obtained at astronomy shops and establishments that sell laser pointers to adults, scrupulously avoiding their falling into immature hands. But the best laid plans can always go awry, and where there's a will, a way will always be found.

Laser pointers possessed by mature adults with immature minds can be put to the kind of vicious mischief that endangers pilots, flight and passengers. The same laser pointer that can be used for conferences and board meetings to illustrate a point can be capable of illuminating the flight deck of an airplane, momentarily blinding the pilot. There have been occasions when the direction of the light has been sufficiently persistent to cause damage to a pilot's eyes.

There has never been a documented case, thus far, where maliciously-used laser pointers have caused a plane crash, but some idiots are working on it. Who have managed to procure serious laser pointers, like the Spyder II Pro Arctic, a potentially dangerous product that does have the capacity to cause serious eye injury, and obviously, a disastrous accident, bringing a plane out of the sky.

The fact that there does exist people who are curious about what can happen if they point those 'light sabers' spot on, and are determined to act on their sense of curiosity is fairly astonishing.
But they do exist, and they do attempt, from time to time, to deliberately blind pilots.

A Sikorsky S76 helicopter, part of the Ornge transport medicine service on a flight to The Ottawa Hospital was targeted six nautical miles from the Civic campus heliport, when a green laser beam was aimed into the flight desk for a few minutes. Another incident, with another medical service helicopter was dangerously laser-flashed on its way to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

The risk for pilots hit directly by a laser beam is temporary loss of night vision, distraction due to surprise, and could result in extreme danger particularly during descents, landings and take-offs procedures. "A bright flash of laser light can destroy night vision and the ability to see cockpit instruments, and depending on the severity of it, it can cause longer-term damage to the eye."

Twice the past week-end, pilots of airliners were targeted by conscienceless idiot-vandals; one a descending Air Canada Airbus A319 coming in from Vancouver at 7,000 feet over west Ottawa. The 124-seat jet was landed safely. A year ago an air ambulance pilot, flying 2,000 feet over the Gatineau Hills experienced serious eye damage when he was targeted by what must have been a military-grade laser.

There are penalties to be exacted that reflect the seriousness of this particular crime. A maximum fine of $100,000 under the federal Aeronautics Act, along with up to five years' imprisonment. Unfortunately, it's a little like searching blindly in the dark to identify these juvenile delinquents, regardless of their age.