Laser beams being aimed at airliners?

In article . com, wrote:

It seems that he was simply stupid and thoughtless. It's doubtful that
he knew that it would "flood the cockpit" with light. People think
lasers will just show a tiny dot even at a great distance.

Previous to his arrest I was thinking that the FBI should put out a
warning that shining lasers into cockpits would result in being charged
with the intent to murder x people (x = however many souls are on
board). But now I'm just shaking my head at his immaturity. He didn't
have the intent to hurt anyone, he was just showing off, not knowing it
was a really bad idea. Something any kid would probably do as well.

I don't believe it "flooded" anything with light. It's 5 mW. That's
0.005 Watt. So it will "flood" your cockpit with a lot less light than
your LED headlight. Which is not to mention the difficulty of hitting
a moving target from thousands of feet away with a hand-held pointer.
Any "flooding" would be very brief. The major problem would be
distraction, and if we're going after everyone distracting someone
operating a vehicle, I think we should lock up the people responsible
for those obnoxious animated roadside signs. Now *there's* an
anti-terrorism action I could endorse without reservation.

I think this is the typical incredible overreaction because "we have to
look like we're protecting the public." You might as well arrest some kids
that were throwing rocks in the river because an ocean liner might go
past.

Note that there's no way to tell whether this guy was involved in the
Citation incident, by the way. But "flooding the cockpit with light"
from a slant range of over a mile away seems like it would require
something with a much higher output. Maybe there's someone out
there with an industrial laser (or more likely, a spotlight).

Mike Beede