Laser pointers could be declared prohibited weapons in Australia after a series of "attacks" on pilots of airliners coming in to land at Sydney airport, officials said.
In the worst incident, six aircraft had to alter their flight paths on Friday after their cockpits were targeted in coordinated assaults by four green lasers over 15 minutes.
"My [police] minister is examining making these things prohibited weapons," New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma said yesterday.
"These fools think it's a joke. It's not a joke if you end up blinding a pilot, bringing a plane down and potentially killing dozens if not hundreds of people on the plane and on the ground. This could be mass murder," Iemma said.
Federal government agencies began meeting with police yesterday to produce recommendations by Friday on how to curb laser attacks on airplanes, Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said, noting a fresh incident on Tuesday night.
"The attack on an airplane from Cairns to Sydney last night adds renewed urgency to the concern of the government," Debus said in Sydney. "We are in fact dealing with a new kind of very destructive behavior."
Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said the coordinated incident last Friday was particularly worrying.
"Normally we just get one and it is intermittent," he said. "It is happening probably five or six times a week, so almost every day somewhere around Australia someone is pointing a laser at an aircraft."
Laser pointers are hand-held devices, often no bigger than a pen. The power of the laser beams varies; a power of 1 milliwatt or lower is legal in most Australian states, but lasers with up to 50 milliwatts or more can be purchased online, laser dealer John Bowen said.
Even with those it would be difficult to blind a pilot in a rapidly moving aircraft, Bowen said.
"The claim that the conventional hand-held laser pointer that any Joe Blow could buy over the Web could bring down a plane by blinding the pilot I think has been exaggerated," he said.
Norman Heckenberg, professor at the University of Queensland laser science center, also said that common laser pointers are unlikely to pose a danger.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
RSS