Laser attack

Voiceover: 00:13

Welcome to the CAA Safety Files podcast.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 00:30

Hello and welcome to the Safety Files podcast from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. I'm Nathan Lovett from the CAA Communications team, and in this series, we look at occurrence, incident or accident reports that have been published throughout the different areas of the UK aviation industry. We cover a different report in each episode and hear from aviation experts to find out what can be learned from it. So, in this episode, we're looking at Laser attacks, specifically incidents involving air ambulance and police aircraft. Now this isn't a new issue, but it remains a serious safety risk for pilots and crews who experience a laser attack. And in the case of air ambulances, laser incidents can delay or prevent crews from reaching people on the ground who need urgent medical treatment. We're going to hear from an air ambulance service about a laser incident that they experienced, and we'll cover the information and resources that are available for pilots and crew relating to laser attacks. We'll also look at how to report an incident and hear from the police on the importance of reporting a laser attack as a crime. We're going to start though by looking at the data relating to laser attacks that are reported to us here at the UK CAA. And we're joined by John Walter, who works in the CAA safety Intelligence Team. Welcome John, please. Can you tell us about your role and the type of work that you're involved in here?

Jon Walter (UK CAA): 01:45

Yeah, so my name is Jon Walter. I'm an Intelligence Lead at the CAA, and I work very closely with the flight ops and medical departments.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 01:52

We've featured the Safety Intelligence Team before in a previous episode, but for people that aren't aware already, please, can you tell us about the work that your team does? What type of reports do you see coming in?

Jon Walter (UK CAA): 02:02

So, we're a team of 11, and we work really closely with departments across the CAA providing intelligence and analysis to better help the organization understand and mitigate risk. So, most of the data that we look at is for mandatory occurrences. We receive about 40 thousand occurrence reports per year, so there's a lot of safety critical information and trend analysis that can be done from that. But it's not just MORs. We also look at things like audit findings, international safety trends, leap movements, and anything else that might build a better safety picture.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 02:32

You've pulled some data for us, covering reports that people have made to the CAA about laser incidents, please. Can you talk us through those? How many reports does your team typically receive about this?

Jon Walter (UK CAA): 02:42

Yeah. So, the CAA receives about 14 hundred reports of laser interference per year, July and October. Normally, the months with the highest number of reports, large commercial aircraft are involved in the majority of these reports, about 80% of total, and they're most commonly repairing as they approach to the airport to land. So, while large commercial aircraft have the highest number of reports, police and ambulances are involved in the highest rate of reports of laser strikes on if you look at them on a per flight basis, so a 40% higher rate than the airliners. They're more often a target due to them flying lower, slower and often near residential areas. So, the majority of the reports we receive are deemed low severity, but they all cause distraction to flight crew and the potential to cause serious accident or incidents and injuries to those on board. So, the offenders can face an unlimited fine or a jail sentence of up to five years.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 03:32

You've brought along one of the reports that was sent in following a laser incident so that we can see the type of information that you receive. This has been redacted so everything is anonymized. Please. Can you read through what that report says?

Jon Walter (UK CAA): 03:43

Yeah, so this one report had the perspective of the air traffic controller and the operator both speaking about the same event. From the air traffic side, the operator informed the air traffic tower that the aircraft was being targeted by a laser, and upon landing, the flight crew called the tower to advise the laser had been emanated from a block of flats. They'd not apprehended the suspect. The flight crew was grounded for night duty and required medical attention and from the operators report while on duty, the aircraft was repeatedly targeted by a green laser originating from a block of flats. The crew took evasive action and continued with the task. After applying laser protective goggles, the laser struck the cockpit and dazzled the captain's eyes, which resulted in a mild headache. The suspect continued to target the aircraft with the laser, so the camera was turned to identify the location of the offender. Location was identified to the operations team, and after a brief period, the captain reported experiencing discomfort, but was willing to proceed with the next task. Following this, the crew returned to base, where the captain informed them that their right eye was still sore. As a precaution, the captain was taken to hospital for medical investigation.

Voiceover: 04:50

You're listening to the CAA Safety Files.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 04:57

So as John just mentioned, the CAA receives around 14 hundred reports about laser interference each year. One of the emergency services that has been affected is Yorkshire Air Ambulance, and I'm joined by two of the team from that service. Please can you introduce yourselves?

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 05:12

Yes, Owen McTeggart, Chief Pilot for Yorkshire Ambulance. Been with Yorkshire Ambulance for four years. Before that, I was flying with HEMS for Great North Air Ambulance up in Cumbria. Did that from 2-0-1-2 and before that, I was in a military flying from ‘99 seven onwards.

Alex Clark (YAA): 05:29

I'm Alex Clark. I'm the Senior Technical Crew Member for Yorkshire Air Ambulance. My role is to assist the pilot on the flight and make sure that everything's done correctly. And a secondary role is the ECA part. I'll jump out and help the paramedics with the patient. I used to work for the ambulance service for two years, been doing this for two years. Was in the ambulance service three years, and then before that, was in the military as a combat medic for six years.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 05:55

Thank you both for taking time out to do this. Before we get into the details of specific laser attacks, please can you tell us about the role of Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the service that it provides?

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 06:05

Yeah, so we cover all of Yorkshire for 16 hours a day, seven in the morning until one in the morning. Just have that quiet period where we put the aircraft to bed. So, we work day, night, summer, winter, all weathers to a degree to bring pre hospital care to anybody in Yorkshire and beyond. Alex, do you want to add to that?

Alex Clark (YAA): 06:24

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Yeah, like Owen says, it's not necessarily Yorkshire. We can get called out to the surrounding areas, surrounding counties. We provide, you know, the absolute critical care that patients do need. We go to the worst of the worst sometimes, but it's a service that's required.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 06:41

You both have years of experience. Has this issue of lasers always been there? Would you say that there's been an increase in incidents?

Alex Clark (YAA): 06:47

It's definitely something that we see a lot of in the winter months, most likely, because it's a lot more darker, we operate a lot more in the dark at that time. It's hard to predict. You know, we can go weeks without having them, and then sometimes we can go a week where we have numerous in one shift. It's quite bizarre, really, when they do occur.,

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 07:06

Yeah, I can't really put my finger on whether it's increasing over the last three years, because I came from a situation in my previous charity where we didn't night fly too often. So, I had some laser events at my previous job, but only few and far between. But here, over the last four years, I feel there has been a little bit of an increase, and it's mainly from urban areas, obviously, more population, more chance of somebody having a laser, seeing that little red strobe overhead. And pointing the thing at it. It’s definitely increased the last three years for the charity.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 07:35

Yorkshire Air Ambulance has experienced several laser incidents, and one of the most significant was in September ‘23. Can you please tell us what happened? Alex, you were part of the crew that day.

Alex Clark (YAA): 07:46

Yes, it was, it was myself that got lasered. At the time I was in the back of the aircraft. Another paramedic was doing training on their MVGs. I was in the back with the goggles out on lookout when I did notice a green laser, and it almost hit me straight in the eye. You know, normally we can kind of see it, and our kind of procedure is that once we notice a laser, we'll look away. And we always say, a laser look right or, you know, kind of the opposite direction to where the laser is coming from. At the time, I didn't have any time to say anything. It went into the eyes, and then straight away, I felt bit of a burning sensation. My eye was quite watery, and I was struggling to kind of see out the right eye at the time. We landed on a job, I had to then go out and help the patient, and it was still kind of there, and by the end of the shift, it was kind of really, really blurry. The next day, I went to the opticians, where they said that I'd suffered a burn on my cornea, and it had to heal within the next, kind of couple of days, and they did an eye test, and then they did a second eye test two weeks later, and there was a significant difference from the first eye test, where it happened, quite a drop in sight on that right eye. And then my next eye test, it was kind of back to normal. So, it does show that there is danger to it, and it's something that we are aware of, the dangers with it, but it's never really affected us. We've been quite good previous to that, you know, of looking away and not looking directly at them, but just at that time, I think it was a one in a million shot, and it managed to kind of hurt me.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 09:11

And are you now fully recovered?

Alex Clark (YAA): 09:13

Yeah, yeah fully recovered. Yeah, yeah. It's had no lasting impact on me whatsoever.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 09:17

That's great news. So as a Technical Crew Member, you're not involved with flying the aircraft?

Alex Clark (YAA): 09:22

Yeah, that's correct, yeah. So, it's our job to kind of the assist the pilot, we help with the navigation and selecting of landing sites and whatnot. So, it's very, very lucky that that hadn't been a pilot, because that potentially, if it had been the pilot, it would have meant that that mission had to be aborted, and that patient wouldn't have had the critical care that we could have provided to them.

Nathan Lovett: 09:41

Have you ever had to stop a mission due to a laser incident?

 

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 09:44

No. Thankfully, all the laser events so far have been while we've been in transit. So what height was you at?

Alex Clark (YAA): 09:49

About 1000 feet, 500 AGL I think.

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 09:52

So that's about four hundred metres, which you know. So, background on lasers, you know, they do dissipate over distance. So, Alex is extremely lucky there. We're in transit and not in short finals, where we're only one hundred metres or so above the ground, because if it is high, with increased strength, with lack of distance, it would have caused a lot more damage. And in transit is fairly benign depends what's happening. But we've got the auto pilot to help us out, whereas when you're approaching a HEMS site in a built-up area with lots of hazards. So, if you look at the skyline of Leeds there's lots of cranes around which we can't control. If you're approaching a small site in the city centre and somebody lasers you when you're only one hundred feet, 30 metres, above the ground, that's a very dangerous environment, not only for the distraction effects. Let's say if a pilot gets blinded by laser, that's kind of that job over, if not a catastrophe. So, in one sense, very unlucky to get the laser in his eye at that height, but very lucky that we were at that height, you know. So, for me, I've had it in transit numerous times, but I've had it climbing out of a hospital. But luckily, I'm in a climb phase where I can engage the autopilot, so it's a massive distraction, I had to look away from the laser, I couldn't look where I wanted to go, but knowing the autopilot is going to continue to fly the aircraft for me.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 11:04

Thanks to Owen and Alex at Yorkshire Air Ambulance. We're going to be hearing more from them later when we cover how to report laser incidents. But we're now going to move on from that county level view to look at what is happening across the country with laser attacks and how police are responding. James Cunningham is Head of Aviation Safety for the National Police Air Service, also known as NPAS, and he joins us now. Welcome, James, please can you tell us about the work that you're involved with?

James Cunningham (NPAS): 11:29

Yes, certainly. Nathan, my remit is to facilitate, administer and run the safety management system for the National Police Air Service as the approved and appointed Form 4 CAA post holder, and the remit really is to look at all the safety concerns and risks, analyze what that data is telling us, and provide the Accountable Manager and the staff of NPAS with safety recommendations to keep them safe and to ensure they deliver effective operational service. Keeping the public safe and keeping the crews and the aircraft safe whilst in the air.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 12:05

Now I'm sure a lot of people listening to this will be familiar with the National Police Air Service, but for those that aren't, please, can you tell us about the remit it has and the area of the UK that you cover?

 

James Cunningham (NPAS): 12:14

So NPAS was formed in around ‘12. We cover England and Wales. Police Scotland has its own service providing support to the police force up there. We're providing direct aviation support in the form of EC 1-4-5, EC 1-3-5, and P68R fixed wing. So, we've got two variants of helicopters and one variant of fixed wing. About 24 aircraft in the fleet across 15 bases that operate various different operating hours, but providing 24 - 7, 3-6-5, cover direct to the 46 forces under a collaboration agreement and mandation order from the Home Office. So, all police aviation support in England and Wales is provided by the National Police Air Service. We're broken into a number of regions, and we provide borderless tasking across those regions based on a priority of threat, harm and risk, as tasked by the forces through a central operations center. Predominantly the work is 85% looking for missing people and vulnerable people with mental health issues and so on. So, there's often a misconception out there that all of the work is the high-end pursuits, firearms jobs and police tasking of that nature. We do, of course, do that and support policing in delivery of that service. But actually, as I say, the vast majority of our tasking is looking for missing and vulnerable people and helping the police identify those people and bringing them back safely to their families, so on and so forth really,

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 13:50

What are you seeing at a national level relating to laser attacks? What type of incidents are people reporting and how often are you being told about them?

James Cunningham (NPAS): 13:57

From the data we've had since ‘19, and we've got some data that goes significantly before that, but from then, we get about 60 laser strikes against our aircraft per year. It did spike somewhat in ‘20 where we had about 80 attacks. So, we've seen a little bit of a decline over the years, but not significantly so. It does tend to be in highly densely populated areas. So, coming from the cities, as opposed from the rural. There's a very strong seasonal variation that we've noted. 60% of the attacks against us are coming through the months of July, August, September, October and November. There is a notable drop in that period in August. So, it appears that when the holiday seasons are on us, that to a degree, laser strikes go down. Significant drop in December, January, and again, all the way back until July. So, you get 60% in that small block. And then for every other month, our attacks tend to be about. 5% of the total overall. Since ‘19 we've had just over three hundred reports. Out of those attacks and where we get and look at the data, the vast majority of offenders are 20-year-old males. We have seen from our data, cross referencing the police data, the youngest offender so far, we've identified is a 10-year-old, and the oldest is a 42-year-old, but the vast majority of them are actually early 20s and mid-20s. It's a significant issue for us. But out of those outcomes, I think it's probably worth noting it sort of generated about 20 eye examinations post attack the day after we have had recordings of five of our pilot or crew significantly impacted and then with permanent damage, usually in the term of eye burns and retina damage. And in the last two years, we did have one requirement to remove a pilot from operational shift and take them to E and R to be examined there. They subsequently had a follow up, 24 hours later, and again, we saw retina burning there. So, it's a significant problem. The greatest impact it will have upon us is that immediate distraction to the pilot whilst they're doing something else, as I alluded to there, Nathan probably searching for a missing person and trying to help that person come back to safety. So, it'll put us off task for a significant period of time. You will usually be required to fly away or reposition. We certainly are required to overcome that startle effect that you get. We will then have to report the crime and then manage that end of the process and gather the data. I don't think it will be out of kilter with some of the information that other people have, but predominantly, you're seeing green lasers, but you do see a few, but they're probably in single numbers in my data, the more exotic colours, purple and blue, but predominantly it's green lasers we've got, and I think again, just worth adding we have got two or three incidences where it's not a laser, but it's a very powerful white light, a search light type device on the ground that's been shone at us, and that, of course, does have the same distraction effect and dazzle effect to the crews, particularly if you're on NVG. So, we did have, in 2023 a particularly malicious and nasty white light being shone at us to try and prevent us from doing what we do, which wasn't a laser. And of course, legislation covers both lights and lasers.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 17:36

Thanks to James Cunningham there at the National Police Air Service. We're going to focus now on the information and resources that are available for pilots and crew who experience a laser attack. In a few minutes, we'll look at how to report a laser incident, but first we're going to hear about a self-assessment tool that is available for pilots and flight crew who have been exposed to a laser beam. Dr Ewan Hutchison here at the CAA was involved in the work to develop this tool, and he joins us now to explain what it is and how it can be used. Welcome! please can you tell us about your role here at the CAA and about your background in medicine and aviation?

Dr Ewan Hutchison (UK CAA): 18:11

Sure, I'm Ewan Hutchison. I'm a Doctor of Medicine. I'm the lead consultant for medical certification at the CAA, and I'm a consultant in aviation medicine. Got a pilot's licence, and I worked for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Australia before joining the aerospace company Rolls Royce, and then I joined the CAA 19 years ago.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 18:31

How did this self-assessment tool come about?

Dr Ewan Hutchison (UK CAA): 18:34

We became aware of an increasing problem with laser attacks in about 2-0-1-0 and 2-0-1-1 and the CAA formed a working group which involved the police and various operations experts. On the medical side, we got some eye specialists involved too. And we were particularly interested in the concerns being raised by pilots and ATCOs about what to do following a laser exposure, whether they should carry on at work, or whether they needed to go and seek medical attention, and so we wanted to provide evidence based advice on whether they needed to go and see an eye specialist or not.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 19:08

You mentioned there were several different agencies and experts involved in developing this. What did that work involve?

Dr Ewan Hutchison (UK CAA): 19:13

We had a medical student from the USA who wanted to come and spend time with the Civil Aviation Authority and learn about aviation medicine. So we worked with her, and I supported her with flight operations, with eye specialists, with laser specialists, and we looked at the physics of lasers and the effect on the human eye, and we determined that there were a number of factors that you could use to estimate whether there's likely to be an injury or not. The power of the laser and the distance from the source of the laser are two kind of key components, but those are really difficult to tell from a cockpit. What you can tell, though, is the colour of the laser, and you can get a perception on the brightness of the laser. And we used those four factors to develop a model which would help determine the likelihood of retinal injury. And from that we developed the tool. And the London Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit helped with providing illustrations of laser exposure and helped with testing the usefulness and practicality of the tool. And we also had 25 pilots who we knew had laser exposure, they looked at the tool and helped us modify it to make it as practical as possible.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 20:23

We have a copy of the self-assessment tool here and are including a link to it in the podcast notes. For pilots and crew that haven't seen this already, please can you explain what it covers and how it should be used?

Dr Ewan Hutchison (UK CAA): 20:32

Yeah, so the first side is just describing what it is. It's a self-assessment designed to aid pilots and air traffic controllers who have been exposed to a laser beam in making a decision on whether or not to see an eye specialist. It lists the symptoms and signs that you might experience following an exposure, and it's got examples of the brightness of a laser. So, it splits that into three groups: flash blindness, glare and distraction. And if everything's okay, you haven't got any symptoms or signs, then you can move on to the next bit, which is a grid which you can use to test your central vision, and it asks you three questions to test that. And essentially, if you've got no problems with that as well, then you can move on to the second page, which is an algorithm. It's asking you a bit about perceived brightness and the colour of laser and using that to determine whether everything should be okay or whether, in fact, you should go and see an eye specialist.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 21:28

Great, thank you. So, we know that many pilots, crews and operators will have their own procedures that they follow in the event of a laser attack. But is there anything that you'd recommend people do so that they're prepared if they experience this type of incident?

Dr Ewan Hutchison (UK CAA): 21:40

Yeah, so as you say, the tool can be obtained from the CAA website. So, we suggest that flight crews and ATCOs may wish to print and keep a copy of it, for example, in their flight bag. And we're aware that some airlines have already issued the tools to their crew, and that the crew laminate the A4 and put it in their flight bag and carry it with them, just in case.

Voiceover: 22:01

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Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 22:10

We're now going to look at the guidance for pilots and crews on how to report a laser incident. A little earlier, we heard from Owen McTeggart, Chief Pilot with Yorkshire Air Ambulance, and Alex Clark, a Senior Technical Crew member whose eye was burned by a laser while they were flying to help a patient. We're going to return to that conversation with Owen and Alex now. And I asked Alex to describe what happened on the flight when he realised he had been injured.

Alex Clark (YAA): 22:32

Initially, I did report it straight away to everyone and said, you know, I've been lasered. From a CRM point of view, I made sure that everyone was aware of that, rather than just the pilot, because obviously with my dual role going out into the scene, you know, we have to focus on the patient. But ultimately everyone needs to be aware that, essentially, I've got a bit of an injury. I'm not going to be performing to the best of my ability. And straight after that, I think we returned back to base after that incident. And you know, I said to everyone, I'm making everyone aware of it, but it's potentially something that might, you know, if it develops, is something that I'll have to, you know, go home, and kind of we'd have to put the aircraft away, which is what I didn't want to happen. I also put in a SMR for our safety management report. And then I believe the pilot did an ECCAIRS.

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 23:14

Going back to the initial bit, Alex made a really important point. We've been trying to get over an action and a reason. Okay? And it's from our time in the military. If something happens, you want to give somebody something to do. So, what Alex said then is, laser, look left, which is really important then, because if you say laser, right, what does everybody do? They look right towards a laser. So, Alex saying, laser, look left. You've got to be looking left away from laser, which is really, really important for us. And then the next bit says the follow up stuff, what a pilot would done is inform air traffic control, so if you're with any kind of service, inform them, and then you get a timestamp. And also, we can look back then at the radar trace to see where it was. So it's bit difficult at the time to kind of work out which part of Barnsley or wherever it is it's come from, but because you've got the timestamp from your call to radar, and then you can look back at that and look at our GPS in the background. If it came from the two o'clock about two Ks, we can kind of give the police a rough idea where it came from. So that's a really important thing. And as Alex said, then we put through our safety management system, and we also reported through ECCAIRS, which can kind of be a little bit time consuming, but it's definitely worth it.

Alex Clark (YAA): 24:20

I think, at the time as well NPAS were round in the area. So, once it was reported, they went around that scene to see if they could get lasered themselves. But nothing came from it.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 24:31

Did you immediately recognise that this was serious and that you needed to go and get checked out?

Alex Clark (YAA): 24:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your eyesight's one of the most important parts your body, really. And you know, if there's any problem with that, you kind of want to get it checked out. I reported it to Owen that night, and then the next morning, I said, I want to go to the opticians and just kind of get it checked out a bit. But like I say, luckily, there was no lasting effects from it, but I'm really glad that I went in the morning and kind of got it checked out.

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 24:56

Yeah, and for us as a charity, if there's any doubt, there's no doubt. So as an operator, if we feel there's a potential for eye damage that you don't know is there, because nobody knows if there's a blind spot there, because it's a blind spot, you can't see it. So, we do send people to the opticians for negligible costs, for really good gains, you know. So, it's better for safety. So yeah, our SOPs, if you've had a laser event which has come into your eye area, you'll go and get a quick check over.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 25:20

You heard Owen mention the ECCAIRS system there, which is how you can send a Mandatory Occurrence Report, also known as a MOR, to the CAA to report a laser incident. In addition to the MOR, it's also really important to report any laser incident to your local police force. I asked James Cunningham at the National Police Air Service to explain why this is so essential.

James Cunningham (NPAS): 25:41

Most crews will automatically, in due course, submit a mandatory occurrence report, and that will normally go to the CAA quite effectively and efficiently. One of the things we've been driving very hard, and we do every single time, is we will then approach the local force in the region. So, where that where that offence took place, we'll go to the force, and then we'll register that as a crime as well. That will get you a crime reference number, and it doesn't matter when you're reporting it, whether you can specifically give a grid reference or an absolute address to where the attack was, the crime just needs to be reported and then referenced. What that then does for policing, and particularly the individual forces, is that then generates their data set of how much of that crime is occurring in their area. That data set then drives how much resourcing and what their immediate action plans are. So, crime referencing drives policing output, and it also drives policing resource. So if they identify a trend of an increase, and we did this ourselves in South Yorkshire, with South Yorkshire Police, I should say, a couple of years ago, where we identified that our numbers had remained nationally the same, but actually about 50% of all laser attacks that were taking place in South Yorkshire police's area of operation. So, we went to South Yorkshire Police, liaised with them, and said look, actually this is a spike in your area. Can you assist us? We actually need some help in this. It's an out of the norm trend. So it's easy to think, when you've submitted the MOR, that that MOR will automatically trigger a policing response and a police consideration about the increase in crime. My experience is there is a disconnect between the MOR numbers and the crime numbers, and therefore, in some circumstances, policing is blind to the increase. Where policing is very good is at the big airports, and we do see a lot of laser attacks in and around the airports, where some attacks are against commercial operators, so on and so forth. Normally, the big airports, Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and so on, are well resourced with a specialist police officer who will be on site can help and guide. In a city and smaller airfields, they don't have that resource, and they may be blind to the increase in crime and therefore not considering it in their overall strategic annual crime plan, so on and so forth. So my plea to other operators and pilots, and it may feel like a duplication, but it does pay off dividends, is please report it both through the MOR system, and then report it through to the local force in the area to say this has occurred at this time, in this general area, and get a crime reference number. You will see the forces explain to you that if it's 24 hours later or it's 48 particularly, if you've only got a general area, they will be explaining to you we won't be able to do anything, because we haven't got enough information to actually send an officer to in those circumstances when the detail is, shall we say, vague, but it still records the crime and drives the overall thinking as the planning process takes place. When you report it as a crime and you can identify an address, it will, or should, for most forces, result in a door knock to that address to at least discuss this incident with the occupants, so you will get a policing reaction provided you report it as a crime through that system. It's worth some operators just asking if they liaise constantly with a particular ATC, and if they're using the system, which we have seen with some reporters, where they tell the ATC and they assume the ATC is submitting the MOR, it's worth just asking the ATC, have you also submitted that as a crime as well, and just following up when you've got some time to say, right, can I just confirm the MOR has gone in and the crime has gone in? But I can't stress enough the importance of reporting it as a crime. I'm fortunate in the business of NPAS that I sit at a national strategic board, and I get to present safety themes, so on and so forth to a group of 20 to 40 PCCs and chief constables. So, the data that I can present from my own safety management system, I can present direct to the very Chief Constable that is having to consider it in their force area. So, I do know that the chief constables are absolutely supportive of it being reported as a crime, and they want that evidential basis to consider resourcing and policing action. So, I really can't stress enough the importance of both submitting an MOR and in due course, thereafter a crime. If you can get it in straight away, brilliant. But even if it's two to three days afterwards, please just submit that anyway. It'll drive that crime reference number which drives policing activity. And it is really, really important.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 30:43

Thanks, James. Obviously, the importance of pilots and operators reporting laser incidents as a crime is that it helps drive prosecutions. And we're now starting to see people being prosecuted for laser attacks, aren't we?

James Cunningham (NPAS): 30:54

We are, and I think if we take it as a process, so once you've reported it as a crime, and let's assume that the information that you gave was good. You had an address. The police attended that address, whether it be immediately, 24 hours, 48 hours, whatever that might be, and they identified that an offender was at that address and did commit an offence. They will instigate an arrest at that point, and then they'll take it through their process based on what you're telling them and what they find, depending on the offence and how severe it was, will drive the prosecution, as it would in any other type of criminal activity. You're likely to be approached from the force for a victim statement. What did this actually mean to you? What was the actual impact? And I think often here as advice to operators and others is, when you draft that back, it's, you know, they'll just ask you to put it in your own words. So, you know, what does it mean to you? You can be quite passive sometimes if you don't think of the full potential. So, if you just describe, well, I was distracted for 10 seconds whilst overhead. I wasn't injured. There was no negative outcome. I still managed to land on or complete my task, but nonetheless, I was distracted for 10 seconds. Then when that goes to be looked at through the judicial system, it's not going to get much of a result, per se. It'll be considered in the context of, okay, you broke the crime, but the crime wasn't that significant. So, my advice to pilots and crews is you need to outline that actually this put at risk the helicopter crew, probably a crew of three. So, three people were put at risk, it could have potentially led to a catastrophic accident. They were distracted. The safety impact could have resulted in an aviation emergency, which could have led all the way to. So, I'm not suggesting for one minute that crews and pilots should over egg it, but they do need to describe the potential as well as the actual distraction. So, what could that potentially have led to if they hadn't done it? And most crews now, I think, are pretty good that when they get attacked, they'll turn away and then maneuver in such a way that they're breaking contact of that laser of that offender quite quickly. But again, in the statement, make clear that the activity stopped if it's you that stopped the activity by moving away from it, as opposed to they genuinely just shone the laser at you for two seconds and then stopped completely realizing that they'd made a mistake. So, outline in your victim statement, this is what happened, and then add in the section, this is the potential outcome that we could have had. And then the judicial system, the magistrate, et cetera, can take all of that into account. If operators needed guidance, by all means, get in touch with a local NPAS base, and they will gladly have a conversation with you to give you the guidance and help and support. But it's really, really important to consider that in the victim statement. You may see, because each force does it their own way, and depending on the thing you may see, prosecutions, we've secured some of the best, but we're particularly well placed with the equipment on the aircraft, to secure a prosecution, because our evidence will stand up beyond all reasonable doubt. You may see with very young offenders that the judicial system wants to go down the restorative justice process. So again, we've had all the way from five-year custodial sentences to this is a young lad offender would you be willing to have a conversation or let him come to you and you explain to him why he went wrong as an education piece? So, you will see a different approach depending on the circumstances of the offence, and you might see a slightly different approach from forces. So, some forces will be particularly keen on restorative justice. Other forces will perhaps default to no we think this should just go straight to the magistrate and the magistrate to deal with it. I would reassure my colleagues and peers and crews that the actual work of a victim statement, etc., it isn't that long, it isn't that burdensome. This isn't really difficult, and it isn't really time consuming. If it's a significant event, they may ask you, would you come and give testimony yourself and actually explain in person the impact. We've done that probably since ‘19 perhaps five times, maybe slightly more. We've also done it in the guise that it didn't need to be the member of the crew, so it could be your chief pilot, or it could be somebody else from your organisation who presents that case verbally to the court. We've had our Head of Flight Ops do that. We've had the Chief Pilot. We've had another pilot that wasn't involved in the incident just go to court and explain this is why it's important. So, you may find that that request comes as well if it's a particularly malicious and it's a particularly dangerous strike out of the norm, you may see that the judicial system turns around and says, actually, yes, we've got the victim statement, we've got the evidence. We're prosecuting. We actually want somebody to come and give verbal evidence. Again, it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody from your organisation. I think we've been approached two or three times to give an aviation view on behalf of a prosecution that wasn't necessarily us. So sometimes they'll approach us, sometimes they'll approach the organisation. It does take a while. I think the most recent one we saw was last year, and the prosecution has only recently come out with an eight-month custodial sentence. So, you can see being kind to the judicial system, it is going to take six months to a year, perhaps, to get from offence to sentence if that's where they go. I think be patient. It's well worth engaging with. It acts as a deterrent. It acts as an education. So, when you get those and they come out, it does make us all safer, and it does raise the issue. So please engage, and as I say, please when you do the victim statement, consider the potential outcome, as opposed to just a very factual 10 seconds broke contact, no danger didn't happen. It's Yes, 10 seconds broke contact. Yes, I wasn't in danger after that, but it could have gone this way as well. And it gives the whole court system a better view, a holistic view, of what could have happened. And then it moves from there.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 37:11

You mentioned that you have technology that allows you to pinpoint quite accurately where on the ground a laser is coming from. Can you tell us anything about that, and also the evidence that you can gather when you start building a case for prosecution?

James Cunningham (NPAS): 37:22

We are equipped with very high-capacity cameras, laser spotters, and equipment of that nature that we use to identify missing people. We're able to read number plates at distance from hovering, whether it's fixed wing or rotary. So, without going into the technical specifics of what we're carrying, we've got cameras, we've got laser spotters, monitors and equipment in the back of the aircraft. We can take stills, video footage, so and so forth in real time, and we can actually downlink to police command control centers as well. So, we're very well positioned to deal with the offence as it's committed against us. So, what will typically happen is, if we get attacked, the tactical Flight Officer in the rear will have a camera, have a video already looking at something that's going to be slewed very, very quickly to where the attack is taking place. That will pinpoint the location, we'll then be capturing real time video evidence of the laser being shot at our aircraft and distracting them, so they're captured in that instance. And I'm talking, you know, seconds in flight there that that tactical Flight Officer will have identified the location and captured the evidence that the offence has been committed. We've got geo mapping and so on in the aircraft. So, we'll have a grid reference automatically, the address will come up. We are particularly lucky. We're serving the police. They're our customer, and we serve them. There are police officers in the back of our aircraft. So very quickly, we're going to then speak to the police force on the ground and say we've come under a laser strike from this location whilst we're serving you, because we're obviously speaking to the control room at that point on the job that they've sent us on, and that tends to result quite quickly in police officers being dispatched to that address. So attack the aircraft, don't be surprised if 20 minutes later, the police are then banging that door and wanting to speak to people and wanting to make an arrest, and we do see on quite a good majority that we're getting a police reaction very, very quickly to an address. One other nuance that I think people sometimes forget is we reviewed this with the Laser Safety Working Group and the CAA two years ago, and in England and Wales, 85% of laser strikes are actually against police aircraft. I suspect and with sympathy for my HEMS and air ambulance colleagues, I suspect you're potentially being attacked on some occasions because people think you are us, rather than they're deliberately being malicious against you. But again, that's just my thinking. I know the data from two years ago was 85% of all attacks on rotary, including the military, were against NPAS aircraft. In our cases, we've seen an increase in prosecutions for us because we have absolute best evidence. We have the video footage. We have a sworn statement by a police officer in the rear. We have the evidence of the police getting to the address, speaking to the offender, and that package comes together nicely. So certainly, from our side and policing, we are seeing an improvement in prosecutions year on year. Recently, from Wiltshire, we secured the eight-month conviction there of a gentleman who shone a laser at us in a persistent manner. A few years ago, we did secure the longest conviction that we've seen, which was five years. We're well embedded in this process now. So, every single time it will be reported as a crime, every single time the local force will be told. I think it's fair to say, in the high percentage of probably 75% of the times, there's going to be an approach from the force direct to the address when the address is identified, probably 30% of the time it's within the first hour, if not minutes.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 41:11

So just to recap, if you're a pilot, crew member or operator and you experience a laser attack, please report it, both as a MOR report to the CAA and also to your local police force so that it can be investigated as a crime. I'm going to leave the final word on reporting to Yorkshire Air Ambulance Chief Pilot, Owen McTeggart.

Owen McTeggart (YAA): 41:31

For me, it's really important to report these. Larger companies like Jet2 and things who are regularly flying to Leeds Bradford airport, they'll probably report more of them, because they've got a system in place. I've heard them call to air traffic control, laser event on x miles finals to Leeds Bradford airport, and then they've probably a reporting system that's kind of standardised, but for small operators and private pilots, please report it. Don't be afraid of ECCAIRS, because ECCAIRS and the CAA would rather you put a report in that had some errors in it, that you can correct later, than not bother at all. So just report it and get a database up and running so the police can do something about it.

Nathan Lovett (UK CAA): 42:06

Thanks to Owen McTeggart and Alex Clark at Yorkshire Air Ambulance and to James Cunningham at the National Police Air Service for speaking with us. Thanks also to Dr Ewan Hutchinson and Jon Walter here at the UK CAA. We've included a link in the Episode Notes that explains how you can make a Mandatory Occurrence Report if you need to report a laser incident to the UK CAA. So that's it for this episode, but if you have any feedback or suggestions for subjects that you'd like us to cover in future podcasts, please contact us at safetyfilespodcast@caa.co.uk. Thanks for listening.

Voiceover: 42:51

Thanks for listening. This is the CAA Safety Files podcast.