Shining a laser on a police helicopter is no fun. A man in Mladá Boleslav tried it and faces 8 years in prison

Perhaps each of us has ever played with a laser pointer. While most people don’t last longer than the end of their childhood years, there are also people who enjoy doing it in adulthood and endanger their surroundings. One such person was a 28-year-old foreigner near Mladá Boleslav, who shone a green laser on a police helicopter. He now faces 8 years in prison for this “boy”.

The whole event happened on Sunday, January 10, around 6 pm. The man repeatedly deliberately dazzled the crew of the Czech Air Force helicopter with a green laser light. Police located laser beams from Kosořická Street in the village of Dobrovice in the Mladá Boleslav region. The crew of a police helicopter was just flying for a search operation, and due to glare, there was a real danger that it would not be possible to continue the flight or land safely.

If guilty is proven, foreigners face up to eight years in prison for general danger. You can find his actions in the video at the beginning of the article. Why is this a serious crime?

“In recent years, a number of cases of accidental and deliberate exposure of the aircraft crew to a laser beam or other light device have been reported in various parts of Europe. In this case, personal injury, great property damage and even loss of life can result. We evaluated attacks against intervening helicopters as the most dangerous form of laser attacks. The pilot’s vision can be damaged by radiation temporarily or permanently. The loss of visual control of the flight for a few seconds seriously disturbs the pilot’s situational awareness, causes his disorientation and thus directly endangers the safety of the flight. At present, we are able to reduce the action times of police interventions to the level of minutes, which has significantly increased the probability of successful interventions. The timely presence of the police at the scene of the incident then at least prevents further attacks and thus maintains the standard level of air traffic safety. Laser irradiation is a highly dangerous situation in which a pilot can be injured and, ultimately, in a plane crash or even a catastrophe, “points out Marcela Szkanderová from the Office of the Criminal Police and Investigation Service of the Police Presidium of the Czech Republic.