The laser pointers beamed at aircraft cockpits do not pose serious dangers to the pilots' eyes, eye experts said. Unfortunately, the resulting glares can potentially lead to a "devastating" airplane crash.
In the new research, eye experts found no evidence that the laser pointers damage the pilots' eyesight, highlighting that these beams are only dangerous at short distances.
However, they stressed that the resulting glares can distract the pilots while conducting aircraft maneuvers such as landing or taking off. They highlighted that these are "totally unacceptable" risks.
"In these situations, pilots tend to self-focus on a sudden bright light in the cockpit environment and may be dazzled resulting in an after-image and almost certainly will be distracted," the authors wrote in an editorial published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
"If such a distraction occurs at a critical time such as during landing then the result could be devastating."
In the past 10 years, nearly 1 million laser pointers, key rings and pens are publicly sold in the market. These so-called class 2 pointers used to produce red laser lights with a top limit of 1 milliwatt (mW) of energy. However, in recent times, they produce up to 300 mW.
The authors warned that these should be classified as class 3B lasers and should not be made available to the public because of their safety and health risks.
In the editorial, the authors also said that green laser beams are more dangerous than the red ones. Because the eyes are more sensitive to the former, green laser beams are perceived to be far brighter.
Moreover, cheap laser gadgets with up to 1000 mW can be easily purchased online, said John Marshall, professor at University College of London's Institute of Ophthalmology, who co-authored the study, while 6000 mW laser devices are sold for commercial purposes. These class 4 gadgets can cause irreversible eye damage if beamed from a distance of a few meters.
The European Standardization bodies have been authorized by the European Commission to create a standard for the laser products made available to consumers. The authors stressed that this guideline should enable authorities to pull out unsafe laser products currently on sale.
But manufacturers' compliance and direct imports will continue to be an issue as many people are accustomed to buying unsafe products through the Internet.
Photo: Douglas Muth | Flickr
