'Your vision is attacked': Former P.E.I. pilot wants laser pointer apprehended
Noah Richardson | CBC News | Posted: July 17, 2017 7:00 PM | Last Updated: July 17, 2017
'You lose all sense of where you are and what you're doing'
A former P.E.I. pilot has a stern message for the person who pointed a green laser at a commercial aircraft about to land in Charlottetown over the weekend.
The inbound flight was over the Brackley Beach area just after 11 p.m. Sunday when the incident occurred, said RCMP.
"Very dangerous thing to have happen to you, and they are so destructive," said Deryck Hickox, who now restores airplanes at Brewer Aviation in Charlottetown.
'You lose all sense of where you are and what you're doing'
He hopes the perpetrators are caught and face justice.
"People need to understand that even small lasers can seriously impact a pilot's ability to safely fly an aircraft," he said.
"When your vision is attacked, you lose all sense of where you are and what you're doing," he said.
"If the pilot can't do his job because he can't see what he's doing, then there's a lot of people in the back of the airplane that could be affected by it," Hickox added.
The pilot was able to successfully land the plane at the Charlottetown Airport without incident.
"Make the penalties very severe when they're caught," is Hickox's suggestion.
Shining a laser at an aircraft is a federal offence punishable by fines of up to $100,000 and/or five years in prison.
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