Sydney: 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 today. In the worst incident, six aircraft had to alter their flight paths last 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," said New South Wales premier Morris Iemma. "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."
Federal government agencies began meeting with police today to produce recommendations by Friday on how to curb laser attacks on aeroplanes, said Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus, noting a fresh incident last night. "The attack on an aeroplane from Cairns to Sydney last night adds renewed urgency to the concern of the government," Debus told reporters in Sydney.
"We are in fact dealing with a new kind of very destructive behaviour." 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. Unfortunately it is not amusing. It is in fact serious."
