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Bern, Switzerland - 40 laser attack's on airline pilot's are reported around Switzerland for the year 2009. This year has proven even more shocking, over the running 7 months 40 attack's are reported, that's much more than over the whole last year. These lasers are not given enough of a "danger rating", but in reality these lasers are very dangerous.
According to aviation expert Hansjörg Bürgi "the laser lights are especially dangerous during the takeoff and landing phases". First of all the pilots have to concentrate during these phases the most and whats far more shocking is the fact that the lasers are very strong and they can blind the pilots for a paralization duration time of over 15 seconds. 15 seconds may not seem alot but in reality for aviation this is a very long time. The problem is that these lasers are not legaly sold like the ones the "civilized" people use to make presentations.
These lasers are especially strong and are only available in illegal internet shops that sell these lasers without a license. In order to imagine what I am talking about imagine a laser light that you can see in discos that gets flashed into the sky and you can see from over 1km. The one thing that separates these from the disco is the thin but strong laser line. First of all what we have to see is the fact that these criminals are usually close to airports so that they can target as many pilots as possible.
Imagine the fact that Zürich airport has been targeted the most, this airport has planes taking off and landing every 40 seconds. The problem is deeper if we imagine mislandings or more professionaly said "go arounds" where 3-5 planes have to go around, not only it messes up all the slots but costs airlines and the airport money. What's sad that these people see this "idiotism" as "fun".
This article was written by Roland Ondrus, an in-house aviation news editor for Fly Away Simulation.
Green laser attacking landing aircraft
Green and red laser pens
Image of the supposedly "illegal" green laser pointers that have been used to blind pilots
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