FAA investigating reports of lasers pointed at 11 commercial flights

Link

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that it is investigating reports that lasers were aimed at the cockpits of at least 11 commercial flights Wednesday night near Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

MyFoxNY.com reported that five pilots of five different planes reported the incidents. By Thursday morning, the number had more than doubled.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the incidents occurred between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. WABC reported that pilots said they saw the laser about 6 miles from the airport.

Lasers being shined inside a cockpit can be disorientating for pilots as they approach an airport. The source of the laser beams has not been pinpointed, but planes were diverted to avoid the area where the incidents occurred. All of the planes landed safely and without incident.

Bet it's a couple of kids with nothing better to do.

originally posted by: Kromlech

Bet it's a couple of kids with nothing better to do.

Or, Another ISIS scare.

Or. a dry run for reaction/response data gathering.

Incidents such as these do not make sense to me. We have seen the old laser shining into the cockpit news before.

The media leads us to believe it is "kids" on the ground playing with laser pointers.
But consider the dynamics required for that to actually happen.
A plane is traveling overhead, firstly the cockpit windows, through which the laser shines, are hardly open to the ground side.
The plane is moving at how many hundreds of miles per hour, a very fast, and in context of the sky, small, small target.
it is hard enough to follow a jet plane with your finger, or binoculars...
A one in a million chance it would be of shining a laser for any amount of time through a window, tracking precisely the cockpit, and remaining to do so for long enough for pilots to take note.
This is the sort of pointing extremely technical military hardware is built to do, for one thing...
Kids with laser pens, is laughable.

The linked article reports that, in all contrary to being isolated but grouped incidents, THERE HAVE BEEN 2000 reports by pilots of lasers being shone into cockpits since only MAY 15!!

This is a very very many of extremely lucky kids having fun doing the impossible with laser pens.

To consider this news logically and realistically, it seems a greater possibility that all these reports point so something shrouded, such as a weapons systems test, by someone.

a reply to: ecapsretuo

They're talking about planes that are landing or taking off. Low altitude, low speed, lit up like a Christmas tree.

You really think someone is doing a weapons test in the middle of a US city? These are people that are bored.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Agreed.

How many people do you think are going to run out to an airport with a laser pointer now that they saw it on the news?

Do you know if this has led to any crashes?

a reply to: rockintitz

No crashes, but at least one pilot suffered significant damage to his eyes that didn't start to clear up for several days after. It was a couple weeks before he was cleared to fly again.

I was on I-84 in Utah driving and got hit by one from a house on the hillside. They were just aiming at headlights as cars went by.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks, I remember hearing about this in Denver a while ago.

I still can't understand why anyone would think this is a good pastime.

I work at a small international airport and this happens on a somewhat routine basis.

It is most likely people being reckless idiots.

Hopefully they are found and arrested. What they are doing could easily produce deadly consequences.