Aircraft in Detroit Among Wave Hit With Lasers

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)

More than 20 aircraft were hit with laser beams Wednesday night in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration said, a federal felony that can temporarily blind pilots and an act that is on the rise lately in the United States.

Pilots reported being struck Thursday over several large U.S. cities, including New York and Dallas three times each, the FAA said.

The Detroit Metropolitan Airport at Romulus was hit as well. A 737-900 aircraft was on the approach to Runway 22-R when it was targeted, Michael Conway, spokesman for Detroit Metropolitan Airport, told WXYZ-TV.

Conway said people with lasers, “especially these long-range, industrial length one, treat them like a toy.”

Shining a laser pointer at an airplane may seem like harmless fun, but it can have deadly consequences.

When a laser beam hits a plane windshield, it can light up the whole cockpit, causing pilots to temporarily lose vision. That’s what happened in Detroit.

“The cockpit was lit up with a green laser light,” Conway said.

Doug Reinholz, a police officer who has been lased in a helicopter, said in an FBI press release that shining a laser is the “equivalent to a flash of a camera if you were in a pitch black car at night.”

“It’s a temporary blinding to the pilot and also to the tactical flight officer, whoever we are with,” he said.

It’s not just giant passenger aircraft that are at risk of getting hit with a laser.

Two of the Wednesday night incidents in New York happened to local CBS and NBC news helicopters over Prospect Heights covering a stolen greyhound bus.

NBC captured it all on camera. In the video, you can see the effect the laser has on the pilots. Then the the police show up.

Ossieo Silva was arrested and charged with two counts of reckless endangerment, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

Check out the video below:

No pilots reported injuries Wednesday, but the wave of reported hits is part of a disturbing trend.

As of October 16, there had been 5,352 reported laser strikes on aircraft in 2015, the FAA said. Since 2010, there hadn’t been more than 4,000 incidents reported in an entire year, according to FAA data.

Deliberately shining a laser pointer at an aircraft is a felony that can land offenders in federal prison for up to 20 years and with a fine of up to $11,000 per offense, according to the FBI.

Patch reached out to the FAA for more information on the laser pointer strikes, and we’ll let you know if we hear back.

Patch’s Simone Wilson and Beth Dalbey contributed to this report.