In the first few hours of March 10, 2015, a WestJet flight returning from Barbados was on its final approach to Lester B. Pearson International Airport when a laser beam struck the cockpit.

The tightly focused light hit the eyes of the first officer, who, as part of the crew, was busy trying to land the plane safely. In a report filed later, the officer said the strike left him with a “headache, blurred vision, (and) dry eyes.”

Incidents similar to that happened 173 times in Toronto in 2015, a sharp increase from 2014, when the number was 114, the Star has learned in an analysis of flight occurrence data.

The numbers are pulled from the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System, which logs any abnormal event involving civilian aircraft in Canada.

Though Transport Canada treats CADORS as “preliminary and unsubstantiated,” and couldn’t confirm the numbers due to their “security-related” nature, independent numbers from Peel Region police confirm the rise in laser strikes in 2015. It’s a growing problem, one particularly hard for police to tackle, Acting Sgt. Jeffrey Sharp said.

“If you look at Transport Canada’s records, and you look at our numbers . . . it’s been a steady climb from 2007 forward,” Sharp said.

Peel police counted 111 reported laser strikes in 2015, compared with 49 in 2011.

Ian Smith knows the danger of plane laser attacks first-hand. President of the Air Canada Pilots Association and a former Boeing 767 pilot, Smith said his plane was once targeted by a laser while landing in Toronto. It blinded his first officer, and Smith had to take over landing the plane.

The way the laser stayed on them told Smith it was an intentional attack.

“(The laser) would have had to have been tracking the airplane,” he said.

Smith and Sharp said the lasers used in these attacks are not garden-variety laser pointers, like those used at presentations. The technology is usually much more sophisticated and uses green lasers, which have a more damaging effect on the human eye, Sharp said.

“The human eye absorbs about 28 to 35 times more green light than red light. So they’re perceived as being extremely bright,” he said.

When aimed at pilots during critical moments in flight — takeoff and landing — the laser can blind the pilot and endanger the flight, Sharp said.

“If the light has an impact on their vision, whether they’re looking outside of the cockpit or focusing on instruments, the effect is the same,” he said.

But police have a hard time tracking down where a laser attack came from. Where the laser hits and where it originates may be in two separate jurisdictions. Though Pearson airport falls under Peel police jurisdiction, and the Peel force takes reports on laser attacks, a laser striking a plane landing there could have been shined by someone kilometres away.

“The effective distances that these laser pointers will produce . . . creates an issue. The source location is difficult to establish,” Sharp said.

Even if the laser can be shown to have come from within Peel Region, the only information police have to go on is from the crew, who can only roughly guess the direction from which the light came as they were busy flying the plane.

“We’re certainly not going to request they take a good look,” Sharp said.

Instead, Peel police have focused on prevention techniques, and advocating for a priority response for laser strikes.

One avenue was trying to prevent the import of laser devices that don’t meet Canadian requirements set by Health Canada, but Sharp admitted it might be too late to make a big difference at this point.

“The genie is somewhat out of the bottle on this one. Certainly these devices should be controlled coming into the country, but there (are) already loads of these in Canada in the hands of people who might not appreciate the danger they pose,” he said.

The other avenue for police is awareness. Transport Canada has been rolling out a public safety campaign, warning of the charges someone could face if caught aiming a laser at a plane.

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Under the Aeronautics Act, the maximum penalty is five years in prison and a $100,000 fine, but Sharp said the strictest sentence given so far is 14 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Smith said he wants law enforcement to have more teeth when combating laser strikes. He admits no strategy will be 100 per cent effective, but said the frequent strikes can’t be allowed to continue.

“We are starting to see movement. Whether or not it gets done this year . . . I’m hoping it gets done this year,” he said.