diff --git a/examples/js/loaders/PCDLoader.js b/examples/js/loaders/PCDLoader.js
index 19d22e92922780cbcb1bb2d4d7fdab28addceaa1..fe5e554acdaf5f5110266a4f920da32fa04f7141 100644
--- a/examples/js/loaders/PCDLoader.js
+++ b/examples/js/loaders/PCDLoader.js
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ THREE.PCDLoader.prototype = {
 
 		}
 
-		var textData = THREE.LoaderUtils.decodeText( data );
+		var textData = THREE.LoaderUtils.decodeText( new Uint8Array( data ) );
 
 		// parse header (always ascii format)
 
diff --git a/src/loaders/LoaderUtils.js b/src/loaders/LoaderUtils.js
index ba13d4ba9c82719d8a46c569cbfdcbfb4bba2d6b..3463d522f316e43a41f12a27b41963215045d72e 100644
--- a/src/loaders/LoaderUtils.js
+++ b/src/loaders/LoaderUtils.js
@@ -24,8 +24,17 @@ var LoaderUtils = {
 
 		}
 
-		// Merges multi-byte utf-8 characters.
-		return decodeURIComponent( escape( s ) );
+		try {
+
+			// merges multi-byte utf-8 characters.
+
+			return decodeURIComponent( escape( s ) );
+
+		} catch ( e ) { // see #16358
+
+			return s;
+
+		}
 
 	},