Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The T&T Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (CAA) wants to amend the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Act, 2001 due to the large num­ber of com­plaints about in­dis­crim­i­nate flash­ing of laser lights at air­craft op­er­at­ing in and out of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Two weeks ago, CAA of­fi­cials said pi­lots had been com­plain­ing about flash­ing lights di­rect­ed at air­craft and cau­tioned the pub­lic to re­frain from such acts. How­ev­er, should any­one be caught flash­ing any form of light at an air­craft that per­son would not be pe­nalised by the law since there are no pro­vi­sions in the act for pun­ish­ment.

With the amend­ment, how­ev­er, a per­son who flash­es a light di­rect­ed at an air­craft which may af­fect a flight crew mem­ber in per­for­mance of du­ties will be fined $10,000 and one year im­pris­on­ment. CAA's di­rec­tor gen­er­al Ramesh Lutch­me­di­al said it was nec­es­sary to make amend­ments to the act to send a stern warn­ing to per­pe­tra­tors since the sit­u­a­tion was deemed a safe­ty haz­ard. Lutch­me­di­al said the CAA was an­tic­i­pat­ing the amend­ment to the act in about three weeks. "This is a very se­ri­ous mat­ter. It is a safe­ty is­sue and we have to take ur­gent ac­tion," Lutch­me­di­al said in an in­ter­view. He said about two months ago the CAA de­cid­ed to make amend­ments be­cause of the num­ber of com­plaints.

Lutch­me­di­al said the flash­ing oc­curred for about five sec­onds and could cause in­jury to the reti­na. He ap­pealed to the pub­lic to stop the ac­tiv­i­ty, say­ing the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers, flight crews and even those com­mit­ting the act are at risk. The T&T Guardian ob­tained a list of re­ports made from No­vem­ber 9, 2009 to No­vem­ber 21 this year. A to­tal of 51 com­plaints were lodged by pi­lots, one of whom was "af­fect­ed" af­ter a green laser light was shone at the cock­pit three times. In No­vem­ber there were 26 re­ports.

On No­vem­ber 8 there were six re­ports. Once a green laser light was shone at a Li­at air­craft and five times at the cock­pits of oth­er air­craft. The list in­di­cat­ed that the flash­ing came from Barataria, Blan­chisseuse, Ca­roni, Ch­agua­nas, Cunu­pia, Lopinot, St Au­gus­tine and Tacarigua. The laser-flash­ing ac­tiv­i­ties were done be­tween 6.30 pm and 11.30 pm, ac­cord­ing to the in­for­ma­tion. Po­lice have been alert­ed about the mat­ter.

More In­fo

In Oc­to­ber, a man from Coachel­la Val­ley, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, in the US was sen­tenced to 15 months in fed­er­al prison for aim­ing a laser point­er at a Cal­i­for­nia High­way Pa­trol (CHP) he­li­copter. Ac­cord­ing to on­line re­ports, 19-year-old Nathan Ra­mon Wells aimed the laser at the air­craft while it was as­sist­ing po­lice who were in­ves­ti­gat­ing a bur­glary in June 2009.

The CHP pi­lot was fly­ing at 700 feet when the cock­pit be­came il­lu­mi­nat­ed with a bright green light caus­ing the crew to look away and change course. Al­so in Oc­to­ber, a 51-year old man was in­dict­ed for in­ter­fer­ence with an air­craft for a sim­i­lar of­fence at a CHP air­craft. The in­dict­ment al­leged that Samuel Gre­go­ry Lieb­man struck a CHP Cess­na 206 mul­ti­ple times. If con­vict­ed, Lieb­man faces a max­i­mum of 20 years in prison, a fine of US$250,000, or both.