WestJet pilot’s eyes struck by laser on flight from Newfoundland to Florida
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
The plane moves fast but it's also far away, so the angle it changes by relative to the guy with the pointer is small. To follow it, you wouldn't have to move the tip of the pointer more than (if my rough calculations are right) about a centimeter a second.
At that point of the flight, the pilot's eyes are constantly jumping from a methodical scan of internal instruments to the runway and back. Anything that distracts or jeopardises that process can snowball into a big problem.
In many ways, the short term effects of a laser pointer pose a far more serious threat to safety.
Edit: not sure why people are downvoting. If the point source is spread by diffracting through the window, count of photons per unit area is reduced in proportion to the square of the difference in radius from, say, an inch or so, depending on the spread of the beam with distance, to a large enough cone to apparently light up the cockpit. Which means a 1mW laser goes from ≈1mW/in^2 to ≈.01mW/in^2 if the cone spreads to a diameter of 10 inches by the time it hits the pilot's eye.
Even closing your eyes is not sufficient for some of them. They can light up your eyelids brightly enough to cause damage even reflected twice.
So even a glancing contact will give you a full dazzle, blinding you for at least a few minutes, and possibly permanent damage if you're unlucky.
Industrial lasers are terribly dangerous.
You can find them all over eBay and Alibaba in even higher wattages. I've seen 15w
Above all else, sucks that this happened. Are/were you okay?
It's not that 5mW lasers can't cause permanent damage to the retina, but rather that within 200ms the blink reflex will typically kick in and stop continued exposure.
Green lasers are typically DPSS diode lasers— which means they have a high power infrared laser diode that passes through a frequency doubling crystal to achieve green. Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex.
The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance— the distance at which there's a 50% chance of some minimally detectable permanent lesion on the retina) for a green laser pointer can be hundreds-to-thousands of feet.
The (temporary) flashblindness threshold is some multiple of that. Given the distances involved, I'm guessing it's temporary, unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser.
The TV news mentioned the pilot is on suck leave
It wouldn't surprise me if something like this was used here.
People haven't quite grasped the stupidity/danger of laser pointers yet, I'm afraid. Check out this page with a variety of '50W' lasers: https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/power_50000mw-lase...
FTFY: I would not trust a 50 W laser.
I wouldn't trust it not to blind me, not to blind someone else, not to make burn marks on my walls, not to catch fire randomly, and not to actually output 50W.
This article [0] is a 'fun' look at the laser regulatory environment. Unfortunately, that environment doesn't seem to have teeth yet.
0: http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2017/08/laser-products-hate/
The danger is reflections, at over a watt even the dot that the pointer produces on the wall can be bright enough to cause permanent blindness unless with goggles.
If I'm remembering correctly, a few of the more idiotic 'laser pointer'/'geneva convention violating blinding device' retailers got sued by Lucasfilms for intentionally looking like lightsabers - so you're not wrong!
> The 50000mW 532nm Green Beam Light Separate Crystal Attacking Head Laser Pointer Pen is a versatile tool designed with a variety of functions. With 50000mW high power, it produces a super bright green beam light full of energy that can be used to light a cigarette, cut the paper even plastic into pieces, shoot the bird, and more. Moreover, advanced separate crystal design makes it more stable and durable during long hours of continuous running. And its attacking head is ultra solid even in the harshest environment. Don't hesitate to get one now!
They're taking a tool and turning it into a ridiculous toy. I can already see someone trying to "light a cigarette" they're holding in their mouth and blinding themselves in the process.
That being said a lot of them do come with goggles.
I'm no vegan, but that sounds like psychopathy to me.
This is about a 5W laser for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVWW-bmKwQ
Not anything illegal.
Also, where is a legit source for goggles?
So, 10,000x less power than the lasers on that webpage above.
And if you buy a laser CNC machine, it'll typically have interlocks present to keep you from accidentally blinding yourself. (which is a real possibility - if the material you're cutting has shiny inclusions, the wrong reflection can blind you)
I recommend taking a laser safety training class. At least the ones focusing mostly on show lasers are widely available to the general public, and not expensive. It'll cover the optical dangers at least. Possibly it'll also build some respect for lasers, and maybe make certain things legal for you (important esp. after something goes wrong).
For machining lasers, there's a bunch of extra dangers to you _and_ the machine (e.g. particle exhaust, fumes, certain materials, fire risk (and secondary risk when putting it out!), very high voltages, human errors (I'm serious! and incl. both you and other/untrained people), legal requirements, overheating, electronical failures of the controller or interlock or (very relevant for hobbyists) plain bugs).
On the upside, hobby CNC lasers are often in the order of 100W (appropriate for cutting plastic/wood, engraving glass, and marking metal (with marking spray)), and CO2-based (10μm). A small stone brick will easily work as a beamdump. Basically _any_ thin plastic sheet will easily block secondary beams at this wavelength (so counter-intuitively the laser being invisible is an advantage!). And if the laser is dispersed enough possibly even direct hits, for a very short amount of time (up to seconds). (This is no excuse to save on the goggles.)
Do not trust cheap "complete, in a safe box" CNC lasers bought on the internet. They work, but require _extensive_ rebuilding to be safe.
It's possible and fun to work with lasers as a hobby. But please stay safe! If you can, don't go alone, find a fablab or hackerspace, maybe even build it there.
These pictures look like the 2w and 2.5w variants on Aliexpress.
There are less-sketchy looking offerings in the 7W range for a similar form factor, though - see [0]. Of course, I'm still not sure if there's such a thing as a 'reputable' site in that segment...
Good smell test for those claims: what battery can you hold in your hand that can output 50W?
Laptop batteries all day, so to speak...more typically for about an hour of runtime at that power consumption level between recharge. Not quite following your analogy.
Batteries used for drone racing can easily be held in your hand and can put out hundreds of watts.
Most flashlight and laser pointers use 18650 batteries. Something like the Samsung INR18650-20S can put out ~100W from a slightly bigger form factor than AA batteries.
My battery test was wrong, still, there are no 50W laser diodes out there. We’re doing well to get 1/10 of that power output.
They sell Lasers on ebay for about $50 listed as 'eyesafe',that are 100's of times more powerful than listed, about 1.5 Watts
This is just outright wrong.
IR lasers don't trigger the blink reflex. Visible lasers with an IR component do trigger the blink reflex.
The FAA does take this sort of thing very seriously and one of the guys even had the FBI swing through to interview. Pretty sure they call the local cops with the general location info too. God help the person who thinks they were having a funny with a green laser - and finds out the felony may get them 5 years....
1. While I was reading about the Falkland war's naval action, I learned British warships at one time (70s - 80s ?) were specifically equipped with laser emitters to try to distract jet fighter pilots flying into attack the war ships. This was when some jet fighters still had to fly in close to the warships to attack them.
This was mentioned in the book "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Bluejacket Books)", by Adm. Sandy Woodward.
2. Since a few years ago, US air crew members (specifically on low/slow ones like helicopters) flying around the DMZ area in S. Korea are required to wear protective goggles to protect their eyes from laser beams pointed by North Korean soldiers. This apparently happened a few times and so wearing the protective goggle became a requirement for the crews.
3. Few years ago, a man (fisherman ?) was swept out to the sea at night off one of the Hawaiian islands. He was able to stay afloat but unable to swim into shore. When he heard a helicopter searching for him, he pointed a laser beam emitter into the sky. He pointed out into the sky but away from the helicopter. This helped the air crew locate him quickly for the rescue.
Though maybe general principles would reject any weapon principally designed to maim? That leaves a lot of grey area so understandable that it might need to be spelled out explicitly.
Since 2014, the org has banned the use of all lasers by any attendee, and any lasers used by art cars are heavily regulated. These things are no joke, and it doesn't take much to permanently blind someone.
[1] - https://journal.burningman.org/2015/03/black-rock-city/tales...
From the article: "The flight landed safely a short time later, and the pilot was placed on medical leave, which is routine in such cases."
(Emphasis mine.)
Unless the laser-wilder is using something ungodly powerful, the pilot would have to stare into the beam and consciously override his blink reflex before damage could occur. It seems unlikely that you could even keep the laser focused on the cockpit for that long, at the speed planes move.
Lasers can very quickly cause permanent damage to the eye. But what amounts to ~1 square centimeter target in an aircraft going several hundred miles an hour is likely to be extremely brief. Though distracting and therefore still dangerous.
This is why you can’t keep objects on the foreground and background focused at the same time.
Look at the optic nerve on this pic: https://associatedretinaconsultants.com/diagram-of-the-eye/
PS: This is why the blind spot is relatively small even though the optic nerve is 1.5 mm in diameter.
Edit: looks like maybe? https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Protection-Safety-Glasses-Lasers/...
In all seriousness - besides the light, I wouldn't expect any emissions of any kind really. It's a DC battery and a diode. The only oscillator is the laser cavity.
Florida (wo)man strikes again.