It's a danger to air travel growing nationwide, and until recently was not a problem in Montana. But, that is starting to change. It's pilots being blinded by laser pointers. KULR-8 News' Emily Nantz tells us why it's a growing problem.
"They call it tagging airplanes or something like and lasering airplanes," says Kevin Ploehn, Director of Aviation & Transit at Billings' Logan International Airport.
It might not seem like a big deal to you and me, but to pilots it's a real danger.
Laser pointers aimed a planes in flight - especially when the planes are taking off or getting ready to land.
"It's a tremendous distraction in the flight deck, it's a very real safety hazard and it brings in the very real possibility of having an airplane accident as the result of this action," says Capt. Robert Hamilton, Airlines Pilots Association International.
Though a pinpoint beam on the ground at a couple of thousand feet, the beam spreads out and it can totally blind a pilot.
"A lot of times it's younger people and they're just goofing off, and what they don't understand that if it hits a pilots eyes and he's say on approach for landing, it's almost like getting a big flashbulb going off in your face, you get that residual can't see anything, so now they are coming in for a landing without any vision," says Ploehn.
In 2005, there were 283 laser incidents. Last year that number was up to 3,960.
Though there were only 7 reported in Billings, and it may be relatively new to our area, but not the airports we fly to including Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle.
"The risks are high for doing it, it's not a good thing, very dangerous, could cause some problems, if you've got a plane with 150 people on it and all of the sudden a pilot can't see, that's not a good thing."
"I wonder how stupid people really can be. I wonder if people really understand that when they shine a laser in the eye of a pilot that they could cause great harm if the pilot is not able to continue to fly the plane safely," says Ray LaHood, former Secretary of Transportation.
The government takes this very seriously, dozens of cases around the country of people going to prison for lasering.
"There has never been a recorded case of an airplane crashing because of the airplane being blinded, the pilot being blinded, but there have been thousands of cases, and it's only a matter of time till something bad happens," says Dan Hargrove, Director of Aviation at Rocky Mountain College.
He knows it's not just planes that could be a problem.
"I'd like to warn anyone that has a laser pointer to really think through what you're going to use it for. And if it's night time and you're out in your backyard and you're just having fun with it, don't put it at a vehicle, don't point it at a moving truck and certainly don't point it at an aircraft cause blinding that person in that piece of machinery obviously can have safety problems."
According to the FBI, the penalty for aiming a laser pointer at a plane and interfering with the operation is a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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