“brought down” is a troll, right? This aircraft was “brought down” by either the pilot or copilot along with air traffic control.
That’s like saying “If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon.”
They’re not going to replace every window in the cockpit before every flight.
Plexiglass accumulates scratches in use and lights up like a panel light when brightly illuminated by a laser.
You can see the videos.
There are kids out there with industrial lasers, and any pilot who’s been dazzled doesn’t know how long it will take to recover.
No pilot would continue a transAtlantic flight in that condition — relying on the copilot being able to handle everything that could happen — not on an aircraft loaded with passengers.
A plane can be “brought down” — caused to return and land — in response to all sorts of spurious crap, much of it less actually damaging than a laser strike.
You know why the Strategic Air Command pilots flew with an eye patch, don’t you?
To be able to pilot the aircraft away from the target with the remaining eye.
You don’t want a passenger aircraft operating in that mode.