Fighter Pilots Blinded By Laser

The Miskolc District Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against a 45-year-old man for several counts of crimes against traffic safety, who blinded three fighter pilots with a laser.

According to the indictment, at the end of April last year, the Hungarian Defence Forces carried out a training exercise with three fighter planes on three consecutive nights in the airspace above the settlement of Tiszakeszi, North-East of Hungary, at a flight altitude of 600 to 2,500 meters.

From the courtyard of his home, the accused attempted to illuminate the cockpits multiple times. “The laser light scattered on the glass and plexiglass surfaces of the cockpits caused the pilots to suffer momentary loss of vision and eye blinks,” the prosecution wrote.
On one occasion, the distracting laser light caused the pilot to turn off the navigation lights of his aircraft when blinded by the defendant’s action. The prosecutor’s office proposed a suspended prison sentence without trial with confiscation of the laser-emitting device.

Similar incidents have been recorded around the world, perpetrators often targeting passenger planes, putting travelers’ lives at risk.

The US Federal Aviation Authority has launched a campaign to heighten public awareness of the serious safety risk posed by lasers pointed at aircraft. However, laser strikes increased in 2020 despite a lower number of air traffic operations. The FAA reported 9,723 laser incidents in 2021, up from 6,852 in 2020. This is the highest reported number of incidents ever.

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