Laser terrorism?

[nlinecomputers]

Saw this on the drudgereport:

Laser injures Delta pilot's eyeA pilot flying a Delta Air Lines jet was injured by a laser that illuminated the cockpit of the aircraft as it approached Salt Lake City International Airport last week, U.S. officials said.    The plane's two pilots reported that the Boeing 737 had been five miles from the airport when they saw a laser beam inside the cockpit, said officials familiar with government reports of the Sept. 22 incident. The flight, which originated in Dallas, landed without further incident at about 9:30 p.m. local time.

Full text at the Washington Times.

[ebrke]

What could it be but some sort of terrorism (which in my mind includes some idiot who thinks it's all right to point a laser randomly)? It's not like a laser beam is a natural phenomenon.

[Freddy]

This doesn't make sense unless the attack came from above. If it was dispersed enough to light up the cockpit, how can it do damage?Maybe it was UFOs.

[Peachy]

What could it be but some sort of terrorism (which in my mind includes some idiot who thinks it's all right to point a laser randomly)?  It's not like a laser beam is a natural phenomenon.

Except that it's not conclusively an act of "terrorism". The use of the word terrorism to describe any act of directed violence degrades the meaning of the word. It could have been a teenager being an idiot, but does that make it a terrorist act? To qualify as a terrorist act I think it must refer to acts of violence with a political motive. We have other definitions to describe violence without political ends: mass murder, nuisance, etc. Terrorism is meaningless without someone taking responsibility for the action. It's just random violence. Another example: the Beltway Sniper killings. Was that a terrorist act or just a serial killer? There is a distinction in my mind.

[nlinecomputers]

Exactly. Motive also is something to consider. What if some stupid kid was just trying to paint the plane with his laser (just to see if he could do it) and causes an accident. That is covered under manslaughter laws not murder or terrorism. It can't and shouldn't be equal to someone trying to down the airliner because he is angry about anti-gun laws or our support of Israel.

[ebrke]

the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

Given the Merriam-Webster definition of terrorism, I'm probably wrong since no coercion was present, but in this day and age, being painted with a laser carries the overwhelming perception that weapons fire is going to follow and that seems terroristic to me.

[georgeg4]

Exactly. Motive also is something to consider. What if some stupid kid was just trying to paint the plane with his laser (just to see if he could do it) and causes an accident. That is covered under manslaughter laws not murder or terrorism. It can't and shouldn't be equal to someone trying to down the airliner because he is angry about anti-gun laws or our support of Israel.

i agree with you there nathan with the reservation that if it was a kid " painting the plane " with his laser i honestly dont believe that the commonly distributed lasers are strong enough to damage that pilots eyes from the ground lasers like any other light source do have a limitation on distance .but all that aside i sure would be terrorized if i thought the pilot flying the plane i was on got blinded .

[Ed_P]

Given the Merriam-Webster definition of terrorism, I'm probably wrong since no coercion was present, but in this day and age, being painted with a laser carries the overwhelming perception that weapons fire is going to follow and that seems terroristic to me.

A few years back the schools around here banded the laser pointers from the middle and high schools. Too many kids annoying the teacher and each other. Being painted with a laser carried the overwhelming perception that the kids were being stupid.Not all guns have lasers and not all lasers have guns.

[ibe98765]

C'mon. Consumer laser pointers don't have enough power to do anything like what is claimed unless the guy was like maybe 5 feet away. Take anything you read on Druge with a BIG grain of salt....

[nlinecomputers]

C'mon.  Consumer laser pointers don't have enough power to do anything like what is claimed unless the guy was like maybe 5 feet away.  Take anything you read on Druge with a BIG grain of salt....

Consumer lasers don't but commerical lasers like a surveyor laser has ranges of up to 2000ft which still seems to short to strike a plane that was 5 miles out. I'm not a pilot but I don't think a plane even on landing aproach is that low to the ground when still 5 miles out but I could be wrong about that.

[georgeg4]

Consumer lasers don't but commerical lasers like a surveyor laser has ranges of up to 2000ft which still seems to short to strike a plane that was 5 miles out. I'm not a pilot but I don't think a plane even on landing aproach is that low to the ground when still 5 miles out but I could be wrong about that.

well nathan if you are wrong then we both are . i agree that the commercial versions of lasers are a bit stronger than the ones available to the general public . ( although the surveyors equipment is available to anyone who wants to pay for it )they are still not capable of doing the damage to this pilot . so in short that leaves just two options terrorism or " extraterrestials "P.S. i am not either admitting nor denying their existance i tend to keep an open mind with anything not proven nor disproven .

[nlinecomputers]

Just because I post a story does not mean I agree with it. Only that I found it interesting. I have my doubts about this. One other theory just to heap on the paranoia is that this is miltary grade lasers. Perhaps some military unit was targeting the airliner as a practice target.

[nlinecomputers]

Found this site on a google search.http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htmNow I still have doubts about distance and angle of attack to hit the cockpit windows but it might be possible with lasers of this grade. Class IV

[Guest Paracelsus]

As someone who works with lasers, I can tell you that fairly powerful industrial lasers are not that difficult to obtain. Edmund Optics (subsidiary of Edmund Scientific Co.) has been making them probably longer than just about anyone (early '60)While the ones I use in the Lab for ablating material for elemental analysis are not particularly powerful (12mJ at 266µ UV)... They still pack enough energy with a beam diameter of 200µ to blast a hole in just about anything.Our machining operations use lasers in the volt range to machine complex parts from solid SiC.I won't bore anyone with the equations...But the main factors in the ability of a laser to cause damage are

• Wavelength (shorter wavelength/higher frequency = more punch)
• Energy
• Beam Diameter

The resultant energy density is a factor of the energy/beam diameter ratio.But as has already been mentioned, most high energy lasers do not propagate well over long distances in a normal atmosphere.I also tend to doubt the validity of this story. While even laser pointers warn against prolonged exposure directly to the eye...A laser that would both propagate far enough to enter an airliner's cockpit and damage a person's retina... would probably have punched a hole into the window as well.

[NRD]

While the story may be valid, the words Drudge & Washington Times set off the Bull meter for me.Any possibility this could have happened from a laser show? There is a nice little discussion about the whole thing at slashdot

[Cluttermagnet]

Found this site on a google search.http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htmNow I still have doubts about distance and angle of attack to hit the cockpit windows but it might be possible with lasers of this grade.  Class IV

This site does confirm the idea that "anything can be used as a weapon". They mention possible future weapons applications for their lasers. One product on that page even includes a note that potential customers must first read information about the device capabilities and then submit an affidavit regarding their "hazardous equipment" purchase.Yeah, writings sourced on the Drudge site should be taken with a goodly few grains of salt. If an incident such as this actually took place, I'd guess there might be airborne acquisition, targeting, and firing involved, and it might well be in the 'black' (secret) area, whether carried out by the military or contractors seeking military business. A moving 'weapons platform' firing at a moving target, in other words. This just sounds too darned stupid for that sort of thing, however, as they usually try to keep such activities entirely 'off the books' in the research phase. Stupid amateurs got lucky? Authorized sneaky pete operation gone wrong (target misidentification)? This story smells fishy, as I doubt any 'authorized' tests would deliberately endanger the faculties of any pilot aircrew on duty. That's ludicrous. There's no active air war going on in US skies, other than against drug smuggling. Terrorists? Rowdy college kid prank? Smugglers playing aerial cat and mouse games? Who knows. I sure doubt it. Probably just Drudge wasting everybody's time, as usual. But if the incident actually did happen, the pilot's corneal (Edit: retinal ) injuries would certainly (Edit: might well ) put this into the area of intentionally inflicted harm. (Edit: Perhaps some 'black' experimentation with target acquisition using lasers from a fixed location at an airport in anticipation of possible future need in terrorist scenarios? There have been allegations that the federal government has intentionally and covertly exposed military personnel and/or civilians to nuclear weapons tests radiation and to various chem and bio weapons in the past. Some of these charges have been pretty much corroborated, and perhaps damages set and settled out of court, if I understand correctly.)