Laser safety spans aviation, workplaces, consumer handheld devices and medical settings. The available evidence includes reported incidents, clinician surveys, occupational injury records, PPE behavior and biological-risk studies, but these measures do not describe one common population or exposure rate.
Key Laser Safety Statistics
The most broadly useful figures are:
- In the United States, the FAA recorded 13,304 reported aircraft laser incidents in 2023.
- In the United States, the FAA recorded 12,840 reported aircraft laser incidents in 2024.
- From 2010 through 2023, pilots reported 313 laser-strike-related injuries to the FAA in the United States.
- In a review of 90 aviation laser-illumination incidents, 53 involved commercial aircraft in the national airspace system.
- In that aviation study, 41 of 90 incidents illuminated the cockpit.
- Among cockpit-illumination incidents in the aviation study, 13 of 41 caused pilot visual impairment or distraction.
- The United States recorded 197,160 occupational ocular injuries from 2011–2018, equal to 2% of 9,197,350 workplace injuries.
- In the United States from 2011–2018, males accounted for 152,940 occupational ocular injuries, or 78% of the total.
- In Canada, 318 handheld-laser eye injuries were reported for 2013–2017 through a clinician survey.
- In Canada, reported handheld-laser eye injuries increased at an estimated 34.4% annually from 2013 to 2017.
- Among validated Canadian survey respondents, 157 of 903 clinicians had encountered at least one handheld-laser eye injury.
- In Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates, 20% of surveyed workers never used safety goggles or safety glasses during the week before a 2018–2019 survey.
- In the same UAE study, 95% of workers citing a reason for not using PPE named pressure to complete the work.
- A systematic review identified 30 original studies on HPV transmission risk in medical ablation staff.
- Across three controlled studies, medical CO2-laser users had pooled odds of wart-site findings of 5.75 versus controls.
- Among 156 employees exposed to laser-generated air contaminants while treating genital warts, 5.8% had gastrointestinal mucosal HPV, compared with 1.7% of 115 unexposed employees.
- In a urology operating-theatre survey, 57.4% of 54 respondents reported formal laser-safety training.
- A systematic review of laser-pointer retinal injuries identified 111 patients across 48 publications.
Contents
- Key Laser Safety Statistics
- Reported Aviation Laser-Strike Trends
- Occupational Eye Injury Data in the United States
- Handheld Laser Eye-Injury Statistics in Canada
- Laser Safety Training and PPE Use
- Medical Laser Plume and HPV Risk
- Laser Injury Cases and Evidence Limits
Reported Aviation Laser-Strike Trends
FAA aviation figures are pilot-reported incidents involving aircraft in the United States, not a census of all laser exposures. They show reporting volume by year and should not be interpreted as a population prevalence rate.
| Year | Reported incidents | Geography and measure |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 7,398 | United States aviation |
| 2017 | 6,754 | United States aviation |
| 2018 | 5,663 | United States aviation |
| 2019 | 6,136 | United States aviation |
| 2020 | 6,852 | United States aviation |
| 2021 | 9,723 | United States aviation |
| 2022 | 9,457 | United States aviation |
| 2023 | 13,304 | United States aviation |
| 2024 | 12,840 | United States aviation |
Source: FAA, “Laser Incidents”. The FAA separately reported that the 2023 total was 41% higher than in 2022 in “Dangerous Laser Strikes Increase to Highest Numbers”.
The FAA also recorded 313 pilot-reported laser-strike-related injuries from 2010 through 2023. Injury reporting and attribution may be incomplete, so this count does not represent every injury associated with an aircraft laser event.
A retrospective study of 90 reported laser-illumination incidents adds detail about what happened inside aircraft. Commercial aircraft were involved in 53 cases, and 41 incidents, or 46%, illuminated the cockpit.
Among the cockpit-illumination incidents, 13, or 32%, caused visual impairment or distraction to a pilot. The study recorded 1 reported ocular injury in that subgroup; its reports were not necessarily representative of all events.
Source: “Laser exposure incidents: pilot ocular health and aviation safety issues”.
Occupational Eye Injury Data in the United States
The United States occupational study is important context, but its 2011–2018 BLS SOII records cover ocular injuries of all causes rather than laser-specific injuries. It counted 197,160 ocular injuries among 9,197,350 workplace injuries, or 2%.
Males accounted for 152,940 cases, or 78%, while females accounted for 43,630, or 22%. These are shares of recorded occupational ocular injuries, not laser-exposure risks by sex.
Source: “Ocular occupational injuries in the United States between 2011–2018”.
By industry, services had the largest share of occupational ocular injuries at 23%, followed by production at 19% and installation, maintenance and repair at 15%. These percentages describe the distribution of ocular-injury cases, not the incidence rate per worker.
The same study reported a 6% ocular-injury percentage relative to all injuries in farming, fishing and forestry. Production, installation, and maintenance or repair each had a 4% industry-relative ocular-injury percentage; these measures remain broader than laser safety.
The event categories also show why broad occupational data should be labeled carefully. Contact with objects accounted for 65% of reported occupational eye-injury events, while exposure to harmful substances accounted for 26%, and neither category is laser-specific.
Handheld Laser Eye-Injury Statistics in Canada
A Canadian clinician survey collected questionnaire data from 909 respondents: 263 ophthalmologists and 646 optometrists. The survey concerned injury reports from 2013–2017 and was published in 2019, but it was not a national patient registry.
The ophthalmologist response rate was 23.1% and the optometrist response rate was 12.7%. Validated data were available from 903 respondents, and low response rates may create selection bias.
Source: “Survey of reported eye injuries from handheld laser devices in Canada”.
Among validated respondents, 157, or 17.4%, had encountered at least one eye injury from a handheld laser. The survey recorded 318 reported handheld-laser eye injuries, and reported injuries increased at an estimated annual rate of 34.4% from 2013 to 2017, with a 95% confidence interval of 21.6% to 48.7%.
The severe-case findings describe respondents’ most severe reported cases rather than all injuries. Vision loss ranging from minor to severe occurred in 77 cases, or 53.5%, and persisted for more than six months in 42.9% of those cases; retinal damage was noted in 59 cases, or 41.3%.
Exposure from another person accounted for 67.6% of reported handheld-laser injuries, compared with 26.1% that were self-induced. These exposure-source percentages are survey responses and do not cover every possible category.
Laser Safety Training and PPE Use
A study in small-scale enterprises in Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates, surveyed 500 workers from 95 workshops between November 2018 and June 2019. The sample was a convenience sample of mixed industrial work, not a laser-operator population.
Workshop participation was 95 of 123 approached enterprises, or 77%, and worker participation was 500 of 518 approached workers, or 96.5%. Participating workshops and workers may differ from those who did not participate.
Source: “Personal protective eyewear usage among industrial workers in small-scale enterprises”.
| PPE type | Workers who never used it | Period and setting |
|---|---|---|
| Safety goggles or safety glasses | 20% | Week before survey, Al-Ain small enterprises |
| Face shields | 35% | Week before survey, Al-Ain small enterprises |
| Welding helmets | 70% | Week before survey, Al-Ain small enterprises |
These figures are not laser-specific eyewear compliance rates. Among reasons for not using PPE, 95% cited pressure to complete the work, 75% cited poor vision through lenses, and 10% cited no perceived benefit; workers could select multiple reasons.
A European survey published in 2026 reported that 23 organizations used in-house or manufacturer-provided laser-safety training, 5 used external-provider training, and 7 reported no formal training. The figures describe organizations, not worker-level compliance, and multiple training approaches could be reported.
Source: “European survey on laser safety management in medical settings”.
Medical Laser Plume and HPV Risk
Medical laser safety research often measures biological markers, reported cases or pooled associations rather than direct proof of transmission. A systematic review identified 30 original studies reporting outcomes related to HPV transmission risk in medical ablation staff.
Across three controlled studies, nasal, oral or pharyngeal wart sites were more common among CO2-laser users than controls, with a pooled odds ratio of 5.75, a 95% confidence interval of 1.55–21.38 and p<0.001. This is pooled observational evidence, with controls including general-population and non-laser groups.
One study compared 156 employees exposed to laser-generated air contaminants while treating genital warts with 115 unexposed employees. Gastrointestinal mucosal HPV was detected in 5.8% of the exposed group and 1.7% of the unexposed group, a reported difference that was not statistically significant at p=0.12.
In the same study, HPV positivity was 4.9% among employees treating HPV-related diseases and 0% among 47 employees who did not. The genital-wart laser-treatment subgroup had 9 HPV-positive and 147 HPV-negative employees, while the comparison subgroup had 2 HPV-positive and 113 HPV-negative employees; these findings do not prove human transmission through laser plume.
Source: “Mucosal human papillomavirus in relation to exposure to laser treatment of genital warts”.
A urology operating-theatre survey illustrates the difference between training and knowledge measures. Fifty-four people completed the radiation-safety quiz, 57.4% reported formal laser-safety training, and about 61.1% had participated in more than 20 Ho:YAG-laser procedures.
Only 55.6% answered true to the study-specific statement that eye damage can occur from looking into the green beam even when the laser is not activated. This is a quiz result in a small single-setting survey, not an injury-incidence measure.
Source: “Preconceived Impressions Regarding Holmium:YAG Laser Safety in the Urology Operating Theatre”.
Laser Injury Cases and Evidence Limits
Case-based reviews can document severe outcomes while still being unable to estimate the risk for every exposed person. A systematic review of laser-pointer retinal injuries identified 48 publications describing 111 patients with acute and permanent damage.
Best-corrected visual acuity was below 20/40 in 55% of evaluated eyes at presentation. The denominator was evaluated eyes in international case literature, not all people exposed to laser pointers, and publication and referral bias may affect the result.
Source: “Retinal Injury Following Laser Pointer Exposure”.
Across the evidence, the most important definitions are the denominators. FAA counts are pilot reports, occupational figures include all causes, clinician surveys count reported encounters, PPE studies measure self-reported behavior in mixed work, and medical studies may measure HPV DNA or pooled associations.
Those distinctions make the statistics useful without making them interchangeable. They support targeted controls for aviation, workplaces, handheld devices and medical procedures while leaving the overall prevalence of laser exposure and injury unmeasured in the supplied evidence.