FBI Probing Laser Directed Into Jet's Cockpit

In yet another incident of airliners being targeted into jet cockpits, this one occurred in Ohio.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004

CLEVELAND � Authorities are investigating a mysterious laser beam that was directed into the cockpit of a commercial jet traveling at more than 8,500 feet.

The beam appeared Monday when the plane was about 15 miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (search), the FBI said.

"It was in there for several seconds like [the plane] was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said.

The pilot was able to land the plane, and air traffic controllers used radar to determine the laser came from a residential area in suburban Warrensville Heights.


The rest of the story here:
www.foxnews.com...

That's downright bizarre..

Do you have any theories on this? Do you suppose it was a missle range finder? Aliens? A guy with an incredibly powerful laser in his backyard? Wierd.

Good find with this this one.

Well, it has happened before, in September, in Utah. This jet was at 8500 feet, and there are limits for laser light shows of 3000 feet. It seems intentional; it was over a mile and a half high when hit.

Sounds likes somebody going through a 'dry run'. Lasers can blind pilots if they hit the eyes at the right angle.

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Maybe some of the folks familiar with military hardware could give us an idea what it would take to do this.

It would seem to take an awfully powerful laser.

I would think it would be extraordinarily difficult to aim at something as small as a cockpit window from that far away while it is moving.

There have been other reports of lasers intruding on pilots. It would seem that someone (or someones) is using military grade equipment hoping to cause a crash. If you figure that for every hit at that distance there are probably lots of misses, a handful of incidents represents a lot of attempts.
.

This is a troubling report, but I'd like to understand a couple of things:

1. How does a laser get INTO a cockpit if the plane is 8500 feet up? Cockpits are oriented with glass up and forward. Wouldn't the beam have to come from about 8500 feet or above? In the landing incident, I can understand how it can happen, as the plane will be nose down and close enough to the ground.

2. The article states that a laser beam was tracked to its approximate origin by radar. This makes no sense to me at all from a physics point of view. Radar (radio waves) requires something with some degree of substance to reflect from.

The thing these planes had in common, they were coming in for a slow and lazy approach right? That means nose slightly down, with the landing sight visible from the cockpit, although very far away. That would mean that a sufficiently powerful laser could lock onto the cockpit and not have to move very much to keep the object in sight. If you're watching a road sign approaching a mile down the road, it doesn't move much at first because lateral motion is reduced at distance. Next time you see a plane going overhead, watch how slowly it appears to move. Also, I don't think anybody is trying to blind pilots. I think if anything, the laser indicates a shoulder mounted missle or a very advanced range finder at the least.

www.cnn.com...

[edit on 29-12-2004 by WyrdeOne]

Originally posted by AlexofSkye
This is a troubling report, but I'd like to understand a couple of things:

1. How does a laser get INTO a cockpit if the plane is 8500 feet up? Cockpits are oriented with glass up and forward. Wouldn't the beam have to come from about 8500 feet or above? In the landing incident, I can understand how it can happen, as the plane will be nose down and close enough to the ground.

I had someone answer this for me and posted it around here somewhere...I'll post the link when I find it... But it's impossible for a Laser to go directly into the cockpit from the ground. It would have to be at the same level, or above the plane in order to do this.

Here It Is

[edit on 29-12-2004 by TrickmastertricK]

OK, think about it for a second. If the pilot can see the ground, then someone on the ground can point a laser at the pilot. 8500 feet is a little over a mile. If the plane was on an approach path the pilots would have been looking at the airport.

I'll bet you could get a light show laser to shine that far.


Maybe it was one of these goofs?





[edit on 29-12-2004 by HowardRoark]

There can be only one explanation. Aliens. Who else could shine a laser into the cockpit of an airplane at 8500 feet. Of course, if there are mountains in the area, it could be terrorists, or bored campers, or teenagers showing of for their girlfriends on a mountain lovers' lane.

Apparently there are a rash of these incidents lately. CNN had a quick statement that there have been 6 in the last two weeks. And this :

"The pilots heading into Colorado Springs about 8-30 p-m Monday reported a bright, pulsating light shining into the cockpits. Colorado Springs police say the pilots described the lights as 'green laser lights.' "

www.kktv.com...

Could all the reports be a result of the snowballing media phenomenon? Or is something going on?

I agree with GradyPhilpott on the alien thing. And really, wouldn't terrorists find a better way than laser?

I assume this is nothing more than a bunch of pranksters shining lasers into cockpits. Freinds of mine have green laser pinters that can easily be seen on a cloud 5000 feet up, so why not use a slightly more powerful version like this one here: 64.252.62.40.nyud.net:8090...
and shine it at some planes cockpit? The model on the preceding page has a range of 10+ miles so it and other varients do have the capability to hit a plane no problem.

Agreed Arek,
I think that all possible avenues be explored before heading for the "alien" hypothesis.
Green laser beams are the most sensitive to the human eye and its color spectrum. Example to substantiate this would be the use of green displaying light amplification goggles and eye-wear.

Nonetheless, ruling out all possible earthly connections should be first priority.
Given a tripod, such examples of "green" beam generating lasers can and are found, not withstanding military versions:
YAG laser
ZM-87 Laser Blinder
Green Laser Pointer II
Oxford Laser
100mW Green-Beam 532nm Handheld Laser


There was also another reported incident. Date of article is suspect:
Green Lights at Airport

Federal officials are investigating reports from two pilots who say bright lights were aimed from the ground into their cockpits as they headed into the Colorado Springs Airport.

Both planes landed without problems on Monday night.

Federal officials issued a warning this month that terrorists might try to down aircraft by shining powerful lasers into cockpits to blind pilots during landing approaches.

The pilots heading into Colorado Springs about 8-30 p-m Monday reported a bright, pulsating light shining into the cockpits. Colorado Springs police say the pilots described the lights as "green laser lights."

The next problem is how one could point such a beam, and maintain such a beam, at an object flying at a decent rate of speed.
Possible solution would be strapping, duck taping, etc. the laser device onto a tripod and/or telescope.







seekerof

Took the same theory I had seekerof about a laser taped to a telescope or tripod, not to mention, they or whom, had to be tracking flights enroute to that landing strip, but notice that these occurences happened at night, rather than day. If you really wanted to blind a cockpit, but signal no trace of where the beam came from, the daylight would be best, therefore raises the question why are these occurrences happening only in the evening hours. Now any type of high power laser can reach to that height...but the stability of the beam to do any damage at that range would be minimal, unless its a LRF (Laser Range Finder), such as what military units use to paint a target at distances up to 5nm, but even then the reliability of the beam weakens the longer the distance. But at the same, along with FBI notices, this would be the heighten time to have an aircraft "misland" due to the high traffic of air travel...so my conclusion is the probablity of terrorists attempting this is high and 2nd would be pranksters, but unlikely.

Originally posted by Seekerof
The next problem is how one could point such a beam, and maintain such a beam, at an object flying at a decent rate of speed.
Possible solution would be strapping, duck taping, etc. the laser device onto a tripod and/or telescope.

That could very well be the case since the article does state that:

"It was in there for several seconds like [the plane] was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said.

However, in the other article you posted, it says that

"The pilots heading into Colorado Springs about 8-30 p-m Monday reported a bright, pulsating light shining into the cockpits."

This leads me to believe that the pulsating laser was one continuous beam that was being aimed at the plane, but the unsteady hand or platform used gave the impression of a pulsating light. The beam only struck the cockpit whenever they got lucky enough for the beam to land there. A couple of hits here and there, and that's what the pilots saw.

Is it possible for the laser to bounce off of heavy cloud cover, or does it just penetrate through clouds? This might explain the angle thing; a beam that ricochets off a high cloud.

not unless it has electrostatcity within the cloud structure, giving a bounce, probablity is highly unlikely...it would have to be like a constant mirror

Thanks. Welcome aboard.

Thanks JSO...still trying to navigate around...but there is some interesting stuff to read and talk about...this is a pretty cool site been wrapped into for the last 6 hrs..

Just ran across an interesting device that could be implemented onto commercial jetliners:
New Navy Invention: Laser Detector Protects Pilots' Eyes

Very cool.




seekerof