Lasers must be banned – pilots’ union

About one hour into its flight, there was an announcement and it said the second pilot was shot in the eye with a laser while taking off and the flight was returning to Heathrow, said a passenger aboard the flight.

Passengers were offered overnight accommodation.

“Modern lasers have the power to blind, and certainly to act as a huge distraction and to dazzle the pilots”.

A passenger on board a New York-bound plane which was turned back to Heathrow after a laser incident saw a pilot taken to hospital has described the ordeal as “scary”.

Topping the list for the number of most frequent laser incidents for the first six months of a year ago was London Heathrow with 48, followed by Birmingham with 32, Leeds Bradford with 24 and Manchester with 23.

Lasers can cause a temporary loss of sight that persists even after the light is moved, the British airline pilots association said.

A spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic said the flight landed safely and the airline was now working with the authorities to identify the source of the laser. “This is not an isolated incident”, said Jim McAuslan, the organisation’s general secretary.

In 2009, some 746 incidents involving lasers at airports across Britain were reported to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

“Shining a laser at an aircraft in flight could pose a serious safety risk and it is a criminal offence to do so”.

Laser pointers frequently resemble pens, TV remote controls or small torches, and are sold for business or novelty use.

Flight No. V25 took off at about 8:10 p.m. local time in London and had been expected to arrive at 11:00 EST in NY.

Such incidents were becoming fairly common, he said, and were “very, very dangerous”.

“We strongly urge anyone who observes a laser being used at night in the vicinity of an airport to contact the police immediately”.

John Tyrer, a professor of optical instrumentation at Loughborough University, said laser attacks were “a horrendous problem which is worsening with the easy availability of low-priced, high-power lasers”. “A laser incident in and of itself is not going to cause permanent eye damage to a pilot”.

In one case the pilots’ vision was so badly affected that they had to cover the cockpit and land using instruments alone.