Athens - Pilots on Wednesday have called on Greek authorities to severely punish individuals interfering with the safety of aircraft following a spate of incidents in which pilots have been temporarily blinded by laser pointers.

Several pilots have recently reported high-intensity lasers being shone into their cockpits during take-offs and landings and have warned of a possible crash taking place.

The latest incident occurred over the weekend when two boys, aged 13 and 14, forced a pilot to abandon a landing at the airport on the Dodecannese island of Rhodes because they aimed a high-powered hand laser at the airplane's cockpit.

The two boys and their parents were arrested.

A week earlier, a 16-year-old was arrested on the southern Mediterranean island of Crete for shining a laser pen in the eyes of the pilots coming in for a landing at Iraklio's Nikos Kazantzakis Airport.

"It usually happens during night-time landings, Grigoris Constantellos, the president of the Civil Aviation Pilots' Union was quoted by the Greek daily Kathimerini newspaper as saying.

"When a plane comes in for landing, the lights in the cockpit are dimmed so the pilots can see the runway. Their pupils are dilated so if a laser is shone in their eyes then the pilots are momentarily blinded."

According to Constantellos, the laser beam can also lead to wrong instrument readings during landing and this interference could have disastrous consequences.

He said that dozens of cases in which laser pointers have been shone at airplanes in Greece were recorded this year.

Authorities in the northern port city of Thessaloniki began conducting routine checks at the Macedonia Airport after it was revealed that since the start of the year between
30 and 35 pilots had reported laser pointers to have been directed at their aircraft.

Laser pointers are readily available in the Greek market and can be purchased by street traders for 15 to 40 euros.(dpa)