Joel Hendon

FBI Cautions Users of Laser Pointers: Avoid Criminal Prosecution


Posted: Thursday, November 24, 2011

by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html

Most people are familiar with the little inexpensive laser pointers about the size of a ball point pen. They are used by astronomy hobbyists and also in a number of business applications. Some people like to use them to mark the spot when giving a chart lesson or training. Also many people are unaware that these things can be extremely dangerous. You may, unawares, commit a criminal act that can get you up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine!

They offer a very typical example of a criminal act by a young man who had no idea he was committing a crime or endangering anyone’s life. One evening, 24 year old Justin Stouder was aiming his pointer at a tower about mile away when a police helicopter appeared in his line of sight approximately a mile away. Unaware that he was doing anything criminal or that it was endangering anyone’s life, he pointed the beam at the helicopter. The helicopter pilot was able to direct the police to Stouder’s home and they arrested him just minutes after the act.

What virtually everyone does not know is that the tiny dot you see on the floor, ground or wall within a few feet of the laser pen, becomes much broader as it gets farther away and may be as much as six feet wide at a 500 foot distance. And some of these very inexpensive laser pins can have a range of 2 miles.

And the problem is, this brilliant yellow green light can illuminate the entire cockpit of an aircraft and temporarily blind the pilot and/or crew. And, in some cases actually do damage to the eyes.

Here are a couple of quotes from the FBI story:

“And what appears as a dot of light on the ground can illuminate an entire cockpit, disorienting a pilot or causing temporarily blindness. That’s because the farther the beam travels the more spread out it becomes. “At 500 feet,” Childs said, “that two-centimeter dot you see on your wall can be six feet wide.” To date, no aircraft have been lost as a result of laser incidents, he added, but there have been eye injuries, and perpetrators have gone to jail.” (FBI Story “Making a Point about Lasers”-- 09/26/2011)

In 2009, there were 1,489 laser events logged with the FAA—that is, pilots reporting that their cockpits were illuminated by the devices. The following year, that figure had nearly doubled to 2,836, an average of more than seven incidents every day of the year. And the overwhelming number of the incidents involved green lasers—especially dangerous because the human eye is most susceptible to damage from the yellow-green light spectrum. (Ibid)

To read more, especially concerning the resolution of the Justin Stouder arrest, click here. http://www.fbi.gov/stlouis/press-releases/2011/laser-strike-against-aircraft
Author Biography: Joel Hendon was born near Gadsden Alabama. He attended public schools in Cherokee County, Alabama and after serving a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attended Jacksonville State University, majoring in Business Administration. He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed secular work as a career and retired from Allied Signal Aerospace, he is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works as well as biblical history. He has an extensive website of conservative religious and political articles.http://hebronics.org/index.html

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