Los Angeles / Berlin -
You can kill people with a light beam - laser-idiots, and more often to beat them. With the dangerous light they improvise on subway riders dazzle pilots on approach to try to confuse football:
Now verknackt was in the U.S., the first laser-Idiot (37): Two and a half years jail for his madness, indeed.
And in Germany now, the ban on laser pointers is required - before it can lead to disaster.
It happened in May last year. Two fully loaded Boeing aircraft were landing at the John Wayne Airport, as the 37-year-old pointing a powerful laser pointer at the cockpit. A pilot of the jet was hit in the eye, for a moment, he was dazzled, saw nothing more, flying blind, with several hundred people on board!
The laser-Idiot was taken, now condemned. The horror: There are more and more such cases are known. Recently, also in Germany.
According to statistics of the World Pilot Association, the number of laser attacks worldwide increased from 42 cases in 2000 to 240 in 2005 and 600 cases in 2007.
For Germany, there are no statistics. But the Federal Aviation Authority calls nationwide, 20 cases - alone in the period 26 August to 26 September 2009. But it is true not only aircraft.
Tatort Berlin, Sunday evening: A train subway line 8 went into the station Kreuzberg. Suddenly, a flash, "I got a huge shock," said the conductor (35) later. Half blind, he still managed to stop the train. Unfortunately for the laser attacker: He had entered the train at the railway station was then game over for him. It was a 13-year-old boy ... Against him is a dangerous procedure because of interference with the railway. The train driver was taken by ambulance to the hospital.
Tatort Wien, the Ernst-Happel-Stadion, beginning in February 2008: Millions in front of the TV sets around the world were witness to the Austrian public wanted to stem the 0-3 defeat of their team. Again and again the German players were blinded by laser pointers, Sebastian Schweinsteiger, Jens Lehmann goalkeeper in danger!
And the madness is spreading - in games in Cologne, Hanover (the blinded 96-Fromlowitz goalkeeper Florian: "I had a flicker in the eye and a slight pain in my brain!"), In Champions League matches.
Tatort holiday island of Rhodes last summer: When landing on the Greek island of a laser beam hit the pilot. Dramatic minutes, his co-pilot had to abort the landing go-around.
Cornelia Cramer from the Federal Aviation Authority, "These are significant glare for several seconds to minutes have stopped when the pilot." Here the landing is the most difficult situations during the flight. "Even at the slightest distraction can cause accidents," said Jörg Handwerg of the pilot union Cockpit. "This is as dangerous as throwing stones at cars. These laser pointers are dangerous weapons and should be banned. "
