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Bosnia: US helicopters hit four times by lasers; caused eye injuries

The following news story was broadcast November 4 1998 at 6:31 p.m. EST by the Voice of America:

Intro: The pilot and a crewman on an American helicopter were hurt recently (October 24 1998) when someone fired a laser at their aircraft patrolling over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The men were able to land safely but this, and similar incidents in the Balkans, have sparked concern among U.S. air crews. U.S. military officials and police in Bosnia are investigating the incidents, and the U.S. Army says it is now changing the way it uses its helicopters. VOA's Jim Randle reports from the Pentagon.

Text: Pentagon officials say U.S. helicopters have been hit by lasers four times in Bosnia. Officials say one case caused 'mild to moderate' eye injuries when the laser light stayed on the aircraft for four or five seconds. The pilot and a sergeant were both treated for eye injuries, and both are expected to recover and be able to resume flying.

Nevertheless, Pentagon officials say the Army is changing the way It uses helicopters over Bosnia to lessen the danger to pilots -- but will give few details.

Pentagon spokesman Mike Doubleday did say pilots now have some protection from the laser threat: "What we've done to deal with the situation is to provide helicopter crews with either special glasses or goggles that protect their eyes in these situations."

An expert in weapons technology says the pilots have good reason for concern. John Pike studies strategic issues for the Federation of American Scientists. He says four thousand Iranian soldiers suffered eye injuries, including blindness, when Iraqi forces swept powerful lasers across their ranks during the Iran-Iraq War.

Mr. Pike said, "It was a lot easier for them to injure those soldiers using a laser than it was to kill them by hitting them with a bullet. And the thing is that an injured soldier is a lot more of a burden to a military than a dead soldier is, because every injured soldier requires several more to get him back to the hospital."

Mr. Pike says the Iranian battlefield lasers were those used by tanks to determine the range to a target. Other lasers are used to guide bombs and shells to targets with great precision.

Lasers are used by many nations, including the United States, in tanks, anti-aircraft weapons and to disrupt electronic devices.

Mr. Pike says recent treaties [the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, a 1995 amendment to the 1980 Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons] labeled weapons specifically designed to blind soldiers as "inhumane" and banned their use. But he says with so many lasers playing so many battlefield roles, it will be difficult to enforce the ban on these weapons.

From the Federation of American Scientists