IDIOTS with laser lights are endangering passenger aircraft flying over Sydney, with fears pilots could be temporarily blinded on approach to the airport.
Pilots of passenger planes issued a mid-air alert after a laser beam hit their cockpits over North Ryde on Monday night -- the latest in a stream of laser attacks.
The Federal Transport Department yesterday said it had identified up to 20 attacks across the country, including one on a Royal Flying Doctor plane.
A spokesman for Federal Transport Minister Mark Vaile said there were concerns terrorists could use the lasers, which he is worried could distract pilots -- thereby ''endangering the plane and its passengers''.
Aviation experts yesterday warned beams from pen-sized lasers, which cost $25 on the internet or in hardware shops, can project up to 5km and temporarily blind pilots.
Peter Gibson from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority described the perpetrators as idiots and said their actions added a risk to aircraft.
''It is akin to shining a laser in someone's eyes while they are driving down a freeway at 110km/h. The consequences are fairly obvious, they are in big trouble,'' he said.
''It is like throwing rocks off an overpass. The risk is if they were to get the laser in the pilot's eyes while they are landing into Sydney, they could suffer temporary blindness.''
In the US a man is facing up to 25 years in jail for interfering with a flight crew after shining a laser beam at the pilots of a jet in New Jersey.
FBI investigators were called in after a number of attacks across America three years ago.
The person behind Monday night's scare was still on the loose yesterday with police unable to track them in an area around Lane Cove Rd. The laser light attacker faces up to five years imprisonment when caught.
Mr Gibson said there had been several incidents in the past two years, included attacks in Brisbane, Perth and several in Sydney and Melbourne.
Pilots were at most risk of suffering a hit in the eyes when landing because they are looking down, he said.
In one attack a Royal Flying Doctor plane with a patient on board was targeted as it flew into Perth airport late last year.
Air Services Australia, which receives laser strike reports and forwards them to police, declined to make any comment yesterday.
Copyright 2005 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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