Even without blinking, the plane is quite far away and moving with great speed. How could a laser actually get pointed into someone's eye for more than 0.2s?
This has happened to me while piloting a small plane over oakland. What happens is that the light hits the cockpit front window. That diffuses it throughout the cockpit. It blinds your momentarily. And you lose any and all night adaptation in your eyes. This particularly sucks on moonless nights, and doubly so when you have to look out the window to land.
Well, that's sort of good news then, you're reducing power density by what, 2-3 orders of magnitude? So much less likely to cause permanent damage.
Edit: not sure why people are downvoting. If the point source is spread by diffracting through the window, count of photons per unit area is reduced in proportion to the square of the difference in radius from, say, an inch or so, depending on the spread of the beam with distance, to a large enough cone to apparently light up the cockpit. Which means a 1mW laser goes from ≈1mW/in^2 to ≈.01mW/in^2 if the cone spreads to a diameter of 10 inches by the time it hits the pilot's eye.
All of the high power lasers I've seen are fully capable of blinding people off tertiary or quaternary reflections from even relatively low albedo surfaces.
Even closing your eyes is not sufficient for some of them. They can light up your eyelids brightly enough to cause damage even reflected twice.
So even a glancing contact will give you a full dazzle, blinding you for at least a few minutes, and possibly permanent damage if you're unlucky.
Yep. Trivial to buy, cheaper used from EBay. And you can get infrared ones that will fry eyes without even noticing bright lights first. Your eye simply goes dark forever.
Never had it done to me while flying, but from talking to colleagues, the aircraft windscreen can diffuse the light signal so it is not a pin point anymore, but rather a wide splash of colour. That image in the article (while probably posted for dramatic effect) sounds like what another pilot I've spoken to experienced when a suspected laser was pointed at his cockpit.
Yes, from the pictures it looks like the light diffracts off the glass and fills the cockpit.
The plane moves fast but it's also far away, so the angle it changes by relative to the guy with the pointer is small. To follow it, you wouldn't have to move the tip of the pointer more than (if my rough calculations are right) about a centimeter a second.
Even a split second of that bright flash is enough to make you lose your night vision and leave dancing squiggles all over your retina. Ever had someone's camera flash go off in a dark room? Now imagine that disorientation and loss of vision when you are in charge of several hundred tonnes of metal, plastic and glass containing 200+ souls hurtling towards ground contact.
At that point of the flight, the pilot's eyes are constantly jumping from a methodical scan of internal instruments to the runway and back. Anything that distracts or jeopardises that process can snowball into a big problem.
In many ways, the short term effects of a laser pointer pose a far more serious threat to safety.
And it had to be from up above the plane! I mean pilots sit in "shadow zone" (so to speak) in relation to anything on Earth. So the only situation in which such laser could actually harm and burn someone eyes, is the source came from another plane, flying above. Its quite possible - so many times on my flights I see planes below me going the opposite way.
If your hypothesis was true -- that the pilots eyes are always obscured from the ground by the plane's fuselage -- it would also be impossible for the pilot to see any part of the ground from the cockpit. This is easily debunked with a Google image search of photos taken by pilots looking out cockpit windows.
Cheap green 523nm lasers are especially dangerous. They are marketed as Class III <5mW, but with a laser power meter they are frequently 30mW-80mW or higher.
It's not that 5mW lasers can't cause permanent damage to the retina, but rather that within 200ms the blink reflex will typically kick in and stop continued exposure.
Green lasers are typically DPSS diode lasers— which means they have a high power infrared laser diode that passes through a frequency doubling crystal to achieve green. Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex.
The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance— the distance at which there's a 50% chance of some minimally detectable permanent lesion on the retina) for a green laser pointer can be hundreds-to-thousands of feet.
The (temporary) flashblindness threshold is some multiple of that. Given the distances involved, I'm guessing it's temporary, unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser.
This... has got to be the stupidest thing I've seen online in quite some time. At the very least, something like that should come with a free pair of goggles. And of course they basically look like lightsabers / toys.
There are legitimate uses for these, and for a second I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt- and then I read their descriptions.
> The 50000mW 532nm Green Beam Light Separate Crystal Attacking Head Laser Pointer Pen is a versatile tool designed with a variety of functions. With 50000mW high power, it produces a super bright green beam light full of energy that can be used to light a cigarette, cut the paper even plastic into pieces, shoot the bird, and more. Moreover, advanced separate crystal design makes it more stable and durable during long hours of continuous running. And its attacking head is ultra solid even in the harshest environment. Don't hesitate to get one now!
They're taking a tool and turning it into a ridiculous toy. I can already see someone trying to "light a cigarette" they're holding in their mouth and blinding themselves in the process.
That being said a lot of them do come with goggles.
> And of course they basically look like lightsabers / toys.
If I'm remembering correctly, a few of the more idiotic 'laser pointer'/'geneva convention violating blinding device' retailers got sued by Lucasfilms for intentionally looking like lightsabers - so you're not wrong!
> I would not trust a pair of free goggles to protect my eyes from a 50 W laser.
FTFY: I would not trust a 50 W laser.
I wouldn't trust it not to blind me, not to blind someone else, not to make burn marks on my walls, not to catch fire randomly, and not to actually output 50W.
This article [0] is a 'fun' look at the laser regulatory environment. Unfortunately, that environment doesn't seem to have teeth yet.
I was once helping troubleshoot a UV laser in a lab. It was an IR Nd:YAG pulsed laser with two frequency doublers, and I think the rated output was something like 1 J. The measured UV output was essentially nil. We took off the second doubler and fired the laser at the side of a desktop computer we didn’t care about while wearing serious goggles. There was a little snap and the paint got replaced with a shiny metal spot. :) You do not want a laser like that anywhere near your eyes.
The point of the goggles isn't to protect you from a 50W laser. Or even 1W laser (most googles will quickly melt).
The danger is reflections, at over a watt even the dot that the pointer produces on the wall can be bright enough to cause permanent blindness unless with goggles.
Those free pair of goggles are the biggest lie of the whole package. They cost ~$1 and are often not able to protect your eye. Youtuber styropyro did a roundup on this(sorry for no link)
While I don't believe the 50W of these, green is the most dangerous, as it almost always has some IR noise in it, and your goggles, even if best most likely can't protect from green and IR at the same time.
I mean, there’s no way they’re 50w. The best diode lasers for cutting are about 7W. I have a 4.2w laser on my CNC machine for engraving. That’s very powerful, but, nowhere near 50W. For reference, a 50W CO2 laser is typically used in a professional quality machine for cutting/marking/engraving.
Good smell test for those claims: what battery can you hold in your hand that can output 50W?
> what battery can you hold in your hand that can output 50W?
Batteries used for drone racing can easily be held in your hand and can put out hundreds of watts.
Most flashlight and laser pointers use 18650 batteries. Something like the Samsung INR18650-20S can put out ~100W from a slightly bigger form factor than AA batteries.
> what battery can you hold in your hand that can output 50W?
Laptop batteries all day, so to speak...more typically for about an hour of runtime at that power consumption level between recharge. Not quite following your analogy.
Sigh. There's no way they're getting a 50w out of a single diode. 50w is what our co2 laser is at our hackerspace, and requires a 1.5' tube, specialized PSU and watercooling.
These pictures look like the 2w and 2.5w variants on Aliexpress.
Yeah, sites like that are pretty much in the sweet spot of uselessness - lasers too powerful to use as laser pointers, too low quality optics to use for engraving or other laser CNC projects, too cheap to actually deliver the rated power, and too outside the law to give a fuck about false advertising.
There are less-sketchy looking offerings in the 7W range for a similar form factor, though - see [0]. Of course, I'm still not sure if there's such a thing as a 'reputable' site in that segment...
Are you planning on going outside with it? If so, the answer is "Probably less than 5mW" - the legal limit for a Class 3R laser. Anything higher presents a risk of blinding.
So, 10,000x less power than the lasers on that webpage above.
Those seem to show up in the 500mW+ range, with 2000mW being enough for most softwoods (among other things). Industrial applications seem to range from 50 to 5000+ watts, but the lasers used there are likely to be better focused than the laser pointers you'd find off a site like the above.
And if you buy a laser CNC machine, it'll typically have interlocks present to keep you from accidentally blinding yourself. (which is a real possibility - if the material you're cutting has shiny inclusions, the wrong reflection can blind you)
"The wrong reflection" doesn't give the right impression. The point a 100W laser projects against e.g. a wall, when viewed at 1m distance, can damage your eye. Even if perfectly diffuse. Even if invisible.
I recommend taking a laser safety training class. At least the ones focusing mostly on show lasers are widely available to the general public, and not expensive. It'll cover the optical dangers at least. Possibly it'll also build some respect for lasers, and maybe make certain things legal for you (important esp. after something goes wrong).
For machining lasers, there's a bunch of extra dangers to you _and_ the machine (e.g. particle exhaust, fumes, certain materials, fire risk (and secondary risk when putting it out!), very high voltages, human errors (I'm serious! and incl. both you and other/untrained people), legal requirements, overheating, electronical failures of the controller or interlock or (very relevant for hobbyists) plain bugs).
On the upside, hobby CNC lasers are often in the order of 100W (appropriate for cutting plastic/wood, engraving glass, and marking metal (with marking spray)), and CO2-based (10μm). A small stone brick will easily work as a beamdump. Basically _any_ thin plastic sheet will easily block secondary beams at this wavelength (so counter-intuitively the laser being invisible is an advantage!). And if the laser is dispersed enough possibly even direct hits, for a very short amount of time (up to seconds). (This is no excuse to save on the goggles.)
Do not trust cheap "complete, in a safe box" CNC lasers bought on the internet. They work, but require _extensive_ rebuilding to be safe.
It's possible and fun to work with lasers as a hobby. But please stay safe! If you can, don't go alone, find a fablab or hackerspace, maybe even build it there.
How thin of softwoods are you cutting? Event consumer-grade products like Glowforge are 40W, so I have a hard time believing a 5W laser is practical for much. (FWIW I maintained a 65W CO2 laser cutter for a while.)
It's pretty easy to buy handheld lasers in the several Watt range online for only a few hundred bucks. They're even on eBay, just advertised as way below the actual strength that they are. You look up the actual model number and can figure out their real specs.
It wouldn't surprise me if something like this was used here.
> Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex.
This is just outright wrong.
IR lasers don't trigger the blink reflex. Visible lasers with an IR component do trigger the blink reflex.
You're right about that part, though I've read that since the IR refracts differently than the green, you'll wind up with a region where you're directly exposed to the IR but not to the visible light.
When it does strike the aircraft, it tends to reflect all over and destroy a person's night vision temporarily. Bonus that it (justifiably) can permanently mess up vision on the reflect. I've not been lazed yet, but folks I fly with have when flying GA planes under the bravo shelf. It is a scary thing. Usually turning off the exterior lights is enough to make it stop.
The FAA does take this sort of thing very seriously and one of the guys even had the FBI swing through to interview. Pretty sure they call the local cops with the general location info too. God help the person who thinks they were having a funny with a green laser - and finds out the felony may get them 5 years....
1. While I was reading about the Falkland war's naval action, I learned British warships at one time (70s - 80s ?) were specifically equipped with laser emitters to try to distract jet fighter pilots flying into attack the war ships. This was when some jet fighters still had to fly in close to the warships to attack them.
This was mentioned in the book "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Bluejacket Books)", by Adm. Sandy Woodward.
2. Since a few years ago, US air crew members (specifically on low/slow ones like helicopters) flying around the DMZ area in S. Korea are required to wear protective goggles to protect their eyes from laser beams pointed by North Korean soldiers. This apparently happened a few times and so wearing the protective goggle became a requirement for the crews.
3. Few years ago, a man (fisherman ?) was swept out to the sea at night off one of the Hawaiian islands. He was able to stay afloat but unable to swim into shore. When he heard a helicopter searching for him, he pointed a laser beam emitter into the sky. He pointed out into the sky but away from the helicopter. This helped the air crew locate him quickly for the rescue.
Though maybe general principles would reject any weapon principally designed to maim? That leaves a lot of grey area so understandable that it might need to be spelled out explicitly.
Laser flares are a thing and potentially becoming new regulation. Possible to test, last longer and aren't a dangerous pyrotechnic stored in a confined environment.
I wonder if the laser emitters were mostly meant to effect the crew or if they were aimed at overloading whatever optical targeting sensors the planes were using.
A Black Rock ranger, Kelli Hoversten, was partially blinded in one eye at Burning Man 2014 (my first burn) when someone in the crowd pointed a laser at her while she working [1]. This was a handheld laser from five years ago, so I'm sure the lasers you can buy for cheap, portable use have only gotten more powerful and dangerous.
Since 2014, the org has banned the use of all lasers by any attendee, and any lasers used by art cars are heavily regulated. These things are no joke, and it doesn't take much to permanently blind someone.
Not that I am defending this incident, but this headline is almost certainly a wild exaggeration.
From the article: "The flight landed safely a short time later, and the pilot was placed on medical leave, which is routine in such cases."
(Emphasis mine.)
Unless the laser-wilder is using something ungodly powerful, the pilot would have to stare into the beam and consciously override his blink reflex before damage could occur. It seems unlikely that you could even keep the laser focused on the cockpit for that long, at the speed planes move.
It is quite possible that to get burn damage to one's retinas which is why medical leave and evaluation by an ophthalmologist is routine. While I agree that it is not completely clear, I suspect that he did get at least mild damage or the choice of words would have been different.
Burned seems to overstate things as no specific harm was mentioned.
Lasers can very quickly cause permanent damage to the eye. But what amounts to ~1 square centimeter target in an aircraft going several hundred miles an hour is likely to be extremely brief. Though distracting and therefore still dangerous.
I think this goes beyond "overstated" to outright falsehood (assuming, as it appears from the article, that the pilots eyes weren't actually burned). It punches up the headline, so it's almost certainly purposeful.
They're not talking about combustion-type burning. How hard do you think it is to burn (as in tissue burn) the cells on the surface of the retina, given that there is a lens focusing light onto the retina?
If they are going to use a colloquial expression like "burn" to describe what the laser is doing to the retina, it ought to give a laymen an approximately correct idea of what is going on. So, "burn" should mean something like "does enough cellular damage to the retina to interfere with vision for days".
I'm not sure that matters much, it'd likely still be concentrated on a smaller radius than the pupil, even if it isn't focused to an absolute pinpoint.
Not really, if you look at an accurate model of the human eye about half the inner sphere is photoreceptive. Where a much smaller area collects light. It’s a very different model than how cameras work and how most simplified models are shown.
My guess is that the best case scenario is someone stargazing and pointing out constellations with a laser, then noticing a plane and, without thinking about the consequences, pointing at the plane to show their fellow stargazers "hey, there's a plane".
Well, i think they word "blinded" was overstated, but could be more accurately compared to the "blinded" you might say when someone has their high-beam lights on as you are driving down the highways and it is hard to see. For starters, the plane was at least 10,000 feet if they are 40 km from airport (that is 3,048m or 3 km). if you take any of those green pen lasers and hold it against your skin for an hour it won't burn it. Now, as the focused point of light gets further away the dot grows in size (lasers are great for keeping the light beam together, but it still spreads). So if the plane was at least 3km directly above you, it wouldn't shoot through the floor. But if it was say 45 degrees above and away, that would be 5 km. (remember, the article said it was 40 km from airport, so it wasn't skimming the roof tops - it would be holding at 3km vertical). So, at 5 kms, the pen laser dot would be huge (diluted). Have a look at this physics article https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/lasers.htm...
Shouldn't there be a visual "ShotSpotter" system around airports that can track origins of high-intensity lasers being aimed into the sky around airports?
How do they manage to pinpoint the location in these cases? Do airplanes have accurate "dashcams" combined with the exact location and orientation of the aircraft?
In the US at least (probably most other places too), aircraft are tracked pretty accurately, so if you know the time it happened and the pilot can give a rough bearing, some triangulation should be possible. Add to that the fact that the area around airports (where such lasering usually occurs) is usually sparsely populated due to people not wanting to live near and airport, and it’s easy to see how it might be possible to narrow it down to a specific address.
One thing about a powerful laser is that it scatters off of dust particles and anything else in the air, including the air itself (Rayleigh scattering). As a result it should produce a faint line in the air that points back to the source.
Authorities in all countries need to start dishing out serious penalties including jail time to those playing these games with laser beams. Otherwise, there's going to be a serious crash that could kill 150 or more besides doing major damage if the plane comes down onto a populous area as is likely since these incidents seemed to usually occur near airports.
I've had this happen to me on a highway near Alkmaar (A9), very annoying and super dangerous, in a car just as much as in a plane. The scariest bit is that is pretty much the exact path the planes take to land at Schiphol airport and I figured maybe the person that did that was bored with trying to hit aircraft and then pointed at the highway instead.
Not an electronics expert at all, but what are the chances of doing routine patrols or setting up checkpoints around airports to 'sniff' for the electromagnetic field emissions that these sorts of devices emit when used? I am presuming that they would have a fairly unique fingerprint that would make them stand out from the usual microwave or infrared noise that most household electronic devices use?
Oh, a very distinctive fingerprint! Big powerful EM spike at 564 Terahertz. Trouble is, it comes out in a tight collimated beam...
In all seriousness - besides the light, I wouldn't expect any emissions of any kind really. It's a DC battery and a diode. The only oscillator is the laser cavity.
So your telling me that a laser, pointed from the ground, is able to shoot straight up, that far, and then curve AROUND the tip of the airplane and into the cockpit and lock-in to that fast of a moving object? This is absolute nonsense and is not some civilian pointing a damn laser pointer from a residential address. This is either military or some other phenomenon.
