The body that represents airline pilots in the UK has called for handheld laser pointers to be classed as offensive weapons, after a Virgin Atlantic flight to the US was forced to return to Heathrow when its co-pilot was dazzled by a laser during takeoff.
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) said aircraft were being “attacked” by the devices “at an alarming rate and with lasers with ever-increasing strength”. It said the problem was becoming “more and more urgent”.
Britain has strict safety standards for the handheld devices, usually sold as commercial pointers or novelty items. But experts are concerned at the ease with which much more powerful devices can be obtained online, usually from the Far East, and at the frequency of attacks on aircraft in flight.
Virgin Atlantic said the New York-bound flight, carrying 252 passengers and 15 crew, had returned to Heathrow as a precaution after the first officer reported feeling unwell following the laser incident on Sunday. He was treated by a paramedic at the scene but did not require hospital treatment, a spokesman for London Ambulance Service said.
It is believed to be the first time a commercial flight has been forced to return because of a laser beamed from the ground.
The Metropolitan police said it had begun making inquiries after it was contacted about the incident at 9.35pm on Sunday, but no one had been arrested.
One passenger said the incident had been “really scary, whether it was by accident or on purpose”. Bethany McHutchinson told Sky News: “If anything had happened, if it had been really serious, it could have put everyone’s lives on the plane in danger. It is very scary, especially when you are up in the air and hear stuff like that.”
There were 1,440 separate laser incidents involving aircraft flying into and out of British airports in 2014, according to UK Civil Aviation Authority statistics. A survey of more than 800 pilots last year found that 55% of respondents had been targeted by lasers in the previous twelve months, with 4% experiencing six or more laser incidents.
Figures disclosed by the Ministry of Defence last month revealed that 470 military pilots have also been targeted by lasers devices in the past five years.
According to Balpa, a laser beamed into the cockpit can result in temporary vision loss, a persistent after-image or glare, all of which can endanger the flight.
“It’s an incredibly dangerous thing to do,” said general secretary Jim McAuslan. “Shining a laser at an aircraft puts that aircraft, its crew and all the passengers on board at completely unnecessary risk. Modern lasers have the power to blind, and certainly to act as a huge distraction and to dazzle the pilots during critical phases of flight.”
It is a criminal offence to shine a laser at an aircraft in flight with the intention of dazzling the pilot, carrying a maximum fine of £2,500, though police and prosecutors can also apply the more serious offence of endangering the safety of an aircraft, which can lead to up to five years in prison.
But Balpa, which has been campaigning on this issue for some years, believes classifying the devices as offensive weapons would give police greater powers to arrest people for possessing them without good reason. “This incident shows why this is becoming more and more urgent,” said McAuslan.
A British Airways pilot was reportedly left with significant damage to his eyesight after a “military-strength” laser was shone into his cockpit last year. The pilot was treated for eye injuries at a hospital in Sheffield, where he was found to have a burnt retina in his right eye.
Laser pointers frequently resemble pens, TV remote controls or small torches, and are sold for business or novelty use. In the UK, it is illegal to sell devices more powerful than 1mW, but it falls to local trading standards officers to enforce the regulations and remove items deemed unsafe. Experts say much more powerful lasers are easily available online; it is not currently illegal to own such a device.
John Tyrer, a professor of optical instrumentation at Loughborough University, said laser attacks were “a horrendous problem which is worsening with the easy availability of low-cost, high-power lasers”.
Tyrer, who has been working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland to counteract lasers used in riots using a strip placed on helmet visors, said that it is possible to buy powerful lasers with a range of kilometres rather than a few metres, particularly if the atmospheric conditions are right.
“There are people that buy these things off the internet which are shipped in typically from the Far East, which are very, very powerful lasers and have no use as a pointer,” he said. “This is not a prank.”
Patrick Murphy, a US expert on laser safety, told the Guardian that while tightening restrictions on laser sales would be helpful, pilots should also be given additional training to cope with incidents. “A laser incident in and of itself is not going to cause permanent eye damage to a pilot. However the distraction, or some of the after effects, [if it comes] at the wrong time, that’s when it could be a potential limiting factor.”
Murphy, who sits on a committee advising the US Federal Aviation Authority on the issue and is the editor of LaserPointerSafety.com, added: “If pilots know how to react and recover from this everybody is a lot safer. And pilots are the last chain in the event. You could ban all the lasers on the ground and do a lot of other things, but still someone with evil intent may choose to shoot a laser at an airliner, and pilots need to know what the safety factors are, and how to react and recover from this.”