Virgin Atlantic plane returns to London Heathrow after laser was beamed into cockpit

LONDON // A Virgin Atlantic flight bound for New York was forced to return to London’s Heathrow Airport after a laser was beamed into the cockpit, the airline said on Monday.

The Airbus A340 carrying 252 passengers and 15 crew continued over Ireland before requesting to return, flight radar showed.

The airline said Flight VS025 decided to return to Heathrow rather than making the trans-Atlantic crossing, on Monday, as a British pilots’ union demanded action.

“We are working with the authorities to identify the source of the laser that caused the return of the aircraft to Heathrow,” the company said.

Police said they were contacted Sunday evening and that no arrests have been made.

According to civil aviation authorities in Britain, there were 414 such incidents in the first half of 2015 and some 1,440 in 2014.

Lasers can cause a temporary loss of sight that persists even after the light is moved, the British airline pilots association said. They also have the power to blind. “This is not an isolated incident,” said Jim McAuslan, the organisation’s general secretary. “Aircraft are attacked with lasers at an alarming rate and with lasers with ever-increasing strength.”

The organisation wants British authorities to classify lasers as offensive weapons.

Aviation analyst Howard Wheeldon described the shining of lasers into cockpits as a “very serious issue”.

“Those who are endangering the lives of passengers must be brought to justice,” he said.

John Tyrer, a professor of optical instrumentation at Loughborough University, said it’s not just airline pilots who are targets of such attacks. He has been working with police officers facing riots in Northern Ireland to develop a strip on visors to counter such attacks.

“Laser attacks present a horrendous problem which is worsening with the easy availability of low-cost, high power lasers,” he said.

He said that it was possible to buy powerful lasers with a range of kilometres – rather than a few metres – particularly if the atmospheric conditions are right. He said anyone hit with a laser could have watering eyes or a headache, though he cautioned that he had no direct knowledge of what the Virgin pilot might have suffered.

“This is not a prank,” Mr Tyrer said. “There are laws that say you can’t do this.”

A man was arrested earlier this month after a green laser was shone into the cockpits of passing planes over Kent in southeast England, according to police.

The eye of a British Airways pilot was damaged in November by a “military” strength laser shone into his cockpit, according to Balpa.

* Associated Press, with additional reporting from Agence France-Presse