Australia may ban laser pointers
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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 were quoted saying.
An AFP report said 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,” New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma was reported saying.
“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.”
A Sydney Morning Herald report said there were already thousands of such pointers in Australia, making efforts to ban them problematic.
Meanwhile officials are meeting to thrash out a strategy to tackle the problem.
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