The Americas



A US senator has called for the banning of high-powered green laser pointers. Sen. Chuck Schumer wants  sales to be outlawed following a number of incidents where such lasers injured and disoriented aircraft pilots in New York and other states.

Laser beams

Laser beams. Image by Douglas Muth / CC BY 2.0

NBC 4 New York reports the Democrat representative as looking for federal regulators to halt the sale of the devices, after they were linked with 17 incidents at JFK airport and 37 at LaGuardia in 2014.

Green laser pointers are more likely to injure a pilot’s eyes and can lead to temporary blindness, the Senator stressed. He added that such disorientation and distraction could actually “take down an aircraft” if contact occurred at a certain time in a flight.

According to the US Food and Drug administration, the light energy from such lasers can potentially be more damaging to the eye than looking directly at the sun.