Not very bright: FAA says Hoosiers with laser pointers are blinding pilots

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Federal Aviation Administration wants people in Indiana to put down the laser pointers, immediately.

The FAA says, just more than halfway through the year, the state is far too high on an ignominious — and dangerous — list: the count of ‘laser strikes’ that pilots have reported.

As of July 31, the agency had documented 317 cases of people on the ground in Indiana pointing tightly-focused green, red, blue, or white lights onto or into aircraft above. That equates to about 5% of all the laser strikes reported across the country so far this year. Considering that Indiana has only about 2% of the country’s total population, the FAA says the state is overachieving in all the wrong ways.

To the person on the ground, aiming laser light into the sky may seem harmless enough, but between 2010 and last year, the FAA says 313 pilots reported injuries. The agency has been trying to stop the problem for several years.

“Aiming a laser at an aircraft is a serious safety hazard that puts everyone on the plane and on the ground at risk,” FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said in 2023.

According to a federal tally, air crews reported 13,304 laser strikes last year. The FAA’s current count of nearly 7,000 suggests 2023’s record-setting number could fall this year.

In Indiana, the vast majority of the reports have come from the skies over Indianapolis. Eleven more have happened in or near Evansville, 27 over Fort Wayne, 20 above South Bend, and 15 around Terre Haute.

The FAA’s new strategy goes beyond asking people to stop shining the lights; administrators ask anyone who sees a strike or knows one has happened to report it both to the FAA and local authorities.

The administration says violators face fines and jail time.