There’s never been a commercial airline crash caused by a person shining a blinding laser light into an aircraft, but the Federal Aviation Administration is not taking any chances. The agency is likely to soon seek charges against persons who shine a laser beam into aircraft.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the incidence of such potentially dangerous behavior by persons on the ground is actually increasing. The number of laser beam-incidents spiked by 86% over last year. The agency announced that it will soon seek civil charges against persons whose laser beams shine into cockpits.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, laser beams can momentarily blind a pilot. Even if the pilot is not incapacitated, the blinding laser light can prove a distraction. This distraction is something that pilots can well do without. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there were approximately 2,836 instances of such laser beams being shone into cockpits in 2010. Most of these incidents involve people who think that laser pointers are toys.
Under the charges that the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking, persons whose laser beams invade cockpits may be charged with interfering with the operation of an aircraft. These are serious offenses that could result in penalties of up to $11,000 in fines per violation. The same persons may also face criminal charges. In the past, persons have been criminally charged after they shone their laser beams into aircraft. In one case, the pilot of an airline was temporally blinded by a laser beam, and the man responsible faced federal charges. In Los Angeles, a teenager was charged after pinpointing laser beams into aircraft.
Pilots have spoken about the temporarily blinding intensity of these laser beams, and in some instances, pilots have been forced to put the plane on automatic pilot. There’s no doubt to California plane crash lawyers that such behavior can have potentially dangerous consequences.
No comments yet.