Life: Green lasers pointed at planes in/out of SYD tonight

[thewinchester]

Green lasers pointed at planes in/out of SYD tonight

This has just been reported by the LiveATC crowd, someone monitoring the SYD ATC feed has just heard controllers confirm at 2150hrs that there people either using or pointing green lasers at planes arriving or departing the facility, located about 3.5 miles from the airport.

Twitter - newelmediagroup
RT @newelmediagroup: @liveatc As reported by Sydney ATC unauthorized use of green lasers pointed at incoming air traffic at ~9.50 pm AEST

Twitter user seems to listen to LiveATC way too much, as they tweet incoming arrivals and departures.

Seriously, why do (insert rude name here) do this kind of stuff? It's just asking for trouble and puts pax/crew lives at risk.

Live feed for SYD can be listened to at:
http://www.liveatc.net/get_asx_feed.php?mount=yssy_twr

Or listen from web at:
International Airport Feeds | Live Air Traffic Control Audio Feeds | LiveATC.net

 

[Siegfried]

Re: Green lasers pointed at planes in/out of SYD tonight

...Seriously, why do (insert rude name here) do this kind of stuff? It's just asking for trouble and puts pax/crew lives at risk...

I think the answer to this question is contained in the question itself. There are people out there (and no, this is not a homeland security rant) who think this sort of thing is "cool / rad / <choose your own description>. From my experience, these people are generally young, don't really think that they will succeed in causing anything to happen because "they have things in place so that nothing really bad can happen, and NO concept of the very real effect on other people (or their next of kin in some cases) if it all goes wrong.

BTW - also not a rant against the younger members of our society - its just a fact of life that as they get older, most people tend to consider their actions in more depth - possibly because they have had more experience in making bad decisions with consequences that they have to deal with.

 

[samh004]

I think the answer is that people that buy these green lasers overseas don’t think about what could happen if you shone it at an aircraft. I know that it’s bad, and know the consequences, so the last time a friend showed me a green laser pointer in Hong Kong I had fun pointing it at other buildings, but not into the sky or at planes

It’s all about what the operator of the device knows. After all, it doesn’t say not to point it at a plane, and to them, it’s a small pointer, so most people wouldn’t think it could be that big a deal to a plane.

 

[medhead]

The main point of these lasers is to be pointed at the sky for astronomy. I can't remember the lasers classes off the top of my head oops: as i'm paid to be a laser safety officer). But I would have expected that they would fall into the lowest category for which the blink reflex is an effective protection. IF (big if) that is the case there is little risk, as it would extremely difficult to track the eye of a single person at the distance and speed.

However I do think that they need to licence or register possession of these devices.