> ... pointing a laser the wrong way ...

I don't see how the two situations compare.

If you are shining a laser light towards an aircraft, you are deliberately trying to inflict harm upon the pilot, and could easily cause an accident.

The police drone pilot screwed up, badly, and was possibly criminally negligent, but wasn't intending to down a plane, though that could easily have been the result.

A lot of people who point lasers at planes don't understand how dangerous their actions are.

I expect the people that we give guns/drones to for the purpose of enforcing laws to understand the laws they're enforcing and the consequences of their actions.

Personally I'm unconvinced by the danger posed by handheld lasers to an aircraft. A group of people all pointing high-powered ones into the eyes of a pilot as it's landing, yes that's dangerous. But a single person, it'd be pretty difficult to keep it on target long enough to have real effect. Most of the time I'd say it's just kids pointing up into the sky and maybe hitting the underside of a plane for a split-second, it's not the end of the world. Lets not act like they're shooting heat-seeking missiles.

Yes, it's not the right thing to do and shouldn't be happening, but let's not blow the risk out of all proportion. Of course I do understand why such behavior needs to be illegal, because otherwise whole neighborhoods could band together to distract pilots and bring down aircraft. But by the same token we don't need to send in the SWAT team for a teenager with a laser pointer.

Cue all the keyboard warrior pilots telling me how a 747 will instantly fall out of the sky if touched for a millisecond by a handheld AA-powered laser.

edit: actually just the downvotes, whatever.

Let's have you hop in the left seat of a small aircraft, at night, 500 feet above the ground and I'll blind you for 20 seconds with a laser pointer.

The fact that you're "unconvinced" of something that is a documented danger that could literally kill people is astounding to me. When people talk about this they're not talking about 747s or private aircraft 10k feet in the air. They're talking about small planes in airports and low to the ground.

You're getting (rightfully) downvoted because you're making ridiculous ignorant comments about things you obviously know nothing about.

"Documented danger". Has it ever caused a crash or other damage? Or just "documented danger", unlike the myriad other undocumented dangers I listed in my other comment?

20 seconds seems like an extraordinarily long time to be able to hold a handheld laser on a moving target. Exaggerate much?

You seem to think it's a world-ending danger. I don't. That's fine, I don't fly so whatever.

You're right! We should do a randomized controlled trial to make sure that "obvious dangers" like jumping out of a plane without a parachute are really a bad idea.

I volunteer for the test (parachute group). Will you volunteer for the control group? There's been no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to date that parachutes actually help. We'll be advancing the cause of science!

The parachute study has been done: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

tl;dr no significant difference in results with vs. without.

Ha! +10 points for pedantry.

I should have been more specific: Jumping from a plane from a significant altitude, say 2000 feet AGL.

It's worth looking at some video of what a laser strike looks like from the cockpit.

eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoj3H7LMy2k

And because this happens at night, the pilot looses their dark adaptation - they will have difficulty seeing for a minute or longer after each flash.

So, no, the airplane won't instantly roll over dive into the nearest building. But it is still quite dangerous.

I note that in that video, the first footage there is a plane on the runway with someone shining the laser from maybe 30m away. Not a moving plane in flight.

And it doesn't speak to the quality of the reporting when it shows the alarmist message "THIS FOOTAGE SHOWS A LASER ATTACK ON A PASSENGER PLANE", combined with footage that is clearly not from a plane but a helicopter.

In my younger, stupider days I've played with laser pointers with my young, stupid friends, trying to shine them into each others eyes from across a park. It's really not that bad because you can't hold it steady enough and in a moving aircraft from a large distance would be a non-event. A helicopter would be more vulnerable however, and as I said a group of people all ARMED with laser WEAPONS to ATTACK.

Yes, people who shine at planes are doing the wrong thing, but it's not bad enough to warrant alarmist all-caps warning messages and pretending it's anywhere near as much threat as physical impacts with drones, drunk/sleepy pilots, crappy maintenance or plane UI (lol, I watch Air Crash Investigations TV show), or anything else.

> In my younger, stupider days I've played with laser pointers with my young, stupid friends, trying to shine them into each others eyes from across a park.

I'm assuming that these were 1w red laser pointers? Have you ever played with those new 5w and 10w green lasers? They're a whole other ballpark. One of the big issues is that while a red light doesn't affect your night vision a green laser will.

They were labelled as "<5mW" red lasers, from memory.

I have seen the 5mW green lasers and you're right, I wouldn't play with them aiming them at people's eyes, but I still wouldn't call in an airstrike if my plane was hit by one for a split-second.

I'm assuming that you meant mW everywhere you wrote W.

Nope.

https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/power_5000mw-laser...

I'm aware of these, but the context of what you wrote doesn't seem to match. Did you and your friends suffer burns or blindness when playing with these lasers (which likely did not yet exist when you were younger)? 5mW Nd:YAG(green) laser pointers have been around for about 20 years. Handheld green lasers with power levels above 2W have only been available for about five years.

Wow, that is actually very scary. I take it back. That is a ridiculous power in a handheld laser.

Here is an army of hand held laser pointers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIOh9-RoAaE&t=51s

> you are deliberately trying to inflict harm upon the pilot

I suspect most people who shine lasers at aircraft are just being stupid and don’t intend to inflict harm on the pilot.

I’ve been hit by a green laser in a high-wing. At 3000’, the beam is wide enough that it lights up a substantial fraction of a wing, (quite brightly at night). I suspect that looks pretty entertaining to the laser wielder on the ground. I turned off my position lights, reported their location to ATC, and hope they’re caught, but I think it’s way more likely that they were being a bored butthead (probably a group thereof) than them actually trying to hurt me.

These people tend to be intentionally aiming their lasers at planes, which is quite different from "point a laser the wrong way in the sky" which implies accidental. The headline example on your page also got a year of probation from a fairly understanding judge it seems.

look at the headline 'Plane damaged after being hit by York police drone at Buttonville Airport' if it were a civilian I am sure it would be 'Major disaster - as civilian drone crashes into a plane - potential suspects at large'

> Just look at all of the folks being prosecuted for pointing a laser the wrong way in the sky.

That really smacks of being intentionally obtuse. If I said “look at all the people prosecuted for pointing their guns the wrong way when discharging them” you wouldn’t buy it…