Laser Pointer Incident Reporting

[Jerry 5TJ]

The NBAA's Senior Manager Safety & Flight Operations suggests that should you have a laser incident, you should immediately hit the Ident button on the transponder so the plane's location is immediately captured on the radar tapes. It's easier to plot out on topographical map if a more accurate location of the aircraft is known, and then narrow down the location from which the laser originated.  

I did get a red laser flash one evening a few years ago in N California on approach.   I did not think to hit Ident (or set a user waypoint on the GPS) at the time; the NBAA's suggestion seems a good one to me.

 

[kris_adams]

Unless I'm missing something this seems pointless.  My son has a green laser that claims it will go 8 miles.  After playing with it I dont doubt it.  I don't think the FAA is going to be able to figure out who it is.  Who knows?   I guess it can't hurt.

-Kris

[201er]

I don't understand the point? What is the purpose of pointing lasers at airplanes?

[Houman]

1 hour ago, Kris_Adams said:

Unless I'm missing something this seems pointless.  My son has a green laser that claims it will go 8 miles.  After playing with it I dont doubt it.  I don't think the FAA is going to be able to figure out who it is.  Who knows?   I guess it can't hurt.

-Kris

Not sure for the FAA, but I had this happen to me several months ago, AC told me to fly over the position and tell them when I was there, I was doing night recurring landings and the laser pissed me off, so I tried to help AC which was coordinating it with local police to try to arrest whom ever doing it. Not sure if they got them...

[xrs135]

Unfortunately, these guys are rarely caught... and it's starting to become a very common occurrence. Even had a police helicopter hit by a green laser once and they still weren't able to catch the guy. People don't realize that it is a federal crime... My guess is that it's usually just unknowing kids.

[bonal]

On December 11, 2015 at 6:50 PM, 201er said:

I don't understand the point? What is the purpose of pointing lasers at airplanes?

If stupidity were a resource we'd be set for eternity 

[peevee]

4 hours ago, xrs135 said:

Unfortunately, these guys are rarely caught... and it's starting to become a very common occurrence. Even had a police helicopter hit by a green laser once and they still weren't able to catch the guy. People don't realize that it is a federal crime... My guess is that it's usually just unknowing kids.

Depends, they do catch one once in awhile! If the plane is low enough to give a good location report I've seen them get caught. IE 5th house on the left.

 

Sometimes it's surprisingly complicated to enforce laws. For example a couple years ago there was a guy out in the desert with a little radio station running out of his house.. Anyway it kept bleeding onto a center freq, finally a pilot caught his location identifier so we knew who it was, I even googled up a pic of the house, it looked like a radio antenna with a house attached to it, our suspect you think? Anyway he only broadcast on the weekend, and of course the FCC or whatever agency tasked with talking to him only worked during the week. On top of that it was during furloughs and/or a shutdown, this went on for MONTHS, literally like an entire summer.