Throughout the world, the authorities are fighting with hooligans who shine with lasers into the cabin of the aircraft. We check whether it is possible to blind the pilot.

Until 2004, 400 attempts to blind pilots with laser devices of various capacities were registered in the United States. In 2016 alone FAA I recorded a record 7398 such cases. Growth is primarily associated with the emergence of laser decisions affordable at the price and their widespread distribution among the world's population.

There are reports in the press that blinded pilots temporarily lost their eyesight, and some of them even went to the hospital with retinal injuries. According to the representative of the Federal Air Transport Agency Vladimir Isaev, "this is terrible that when blinding a person loses a spatial position within a few seconds ... This affects the safety of the flight." However, in 2015, the British press Reportedthat the British Airways pilot after one of the “laser attacks” went to the hospital with damage to the retina.

Actually apply ^organs A person is real damage not by military lasers from a distance of more than 100 m. In this case, the target should be static, and not moving, like a flying plane. This is evidenced by the results of the study, published In 2015, in an authoritative British journal of ophthalmology. The same was shown spent In different countries, experiments - for example, organized Russian magazine "Popular Mechanics" in 2017.

Out of about 80,000 fixed Today, in different countries of Laser attacks, not a single one ended with a plane crash or irreversible harm to the eyes of pilots or passengers of aircraft. The only story that has been described above in the press with the damage to the retina in an English pilot causes specialists serious doubts, since the fact was not properly recorded and confirmed. They do not believe that the doctors of the Sheffield Hospital, in which the victim was allegedly placed, would have missed the opportunity to do the first scientific publication in the history of medicine.

However, aviation security experts still insist that a laser beam cannot be directed towards the aircraft even as a joke. They are sure that danger exists. Indeed, many pilots who have undergone such attacks (in Great Britain There are almost 50%of them), they say that the beam, falling on the glass of the cab, is refracted and glance. This can cause fright, loss of concentration, or even temporary blindness, which can last a few seconds. At critical moments of flight, that is, during take -off and landing, this may end tragically.

According to less radical point of view, The “laser pointer” can be knocked down in theory, but only in conjunction with other factors (emergency on board or poor weather conditions). ”

Since there is not a single reasonable reason to shine with laser poles in aircraft, and the danger, albeit hypothetical, exists such behavior for people's life, the legislation of different countries punishes it quite severely. In Russia, since 2017, you can pay for such actions a fine of 150,000 to 300,000 rubles or go to prison for two years. In the United States, everything is much stricter: the fine can reach $ 250,000 there, and imprisonment for especially malicious and permanent violators - up to 20 years.

Not to mention the fact that, for example, in Australia and the UK, the sale of laser decrees is more powerful than 1 MW Forbidden. In the United States, the threshold power of legal devices sold without special licenses is slightly higher - 5 MW. We can not be very cheap, but freely buy a laser with a capacity of 300 MW. "Popular Mechanics" set an experiment with this. But such a pilot for the eyes was not dangerous.