Police say they've managed to catch one of those insufferable idiots who point lasers at airplanes. According to the NYPD, one Frank Egan, 36, spent Monday night hanging out around LaGuardia airport shooting his laser pointer into airplane cockpits as flights arrived and departed at the airport. For those who still don't get it, this can cause lasting eye damage, and this is what the inside of a cockpit can look like when hit by a laser at a certain angle:
FAA officials informed the NYPD about the incident around 11:15 p.m., and an NYPD aviation unit began canvassing the area around LaGuardia. Police say that while the helicopter was conducting the canvass, Egan pointed a laser at them from inside his home on Coddington Avenue.
Officers from the 45th Precinct proceeded to the apartment, where they were greeted by Egan's mother, who invited them inside. There, on top of the refrigerator, was a black device helpfully labeled "Laser 303." Police say that Egan was home and, under questioning, admitted to pointing the laser at planes that night.
Two police officers operating a helicopter for the NYPD Aviation Unit sustained injuries to their eyes and were treated at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. The pilot of an Air Canada commercial airliner was also injured and treated at a hospital in Toronto.
Egan was arrested and charged with assault on a police officer, felony assault, menacing a police officer, reckless endangerment, and criminal possession of a weapon.
“It is important to understand that the laser is no longer a pinpoint but a bright spotlight by the time it hits an aircraft,” FBI agent Thomas R. Metz told CBS after a laser pointer arrest in St. Louis in 2013. “It interferes with the operation of an aircraft because pilots are temporarily blinded.”
In 2013, a Long Island man confessed to pointing lasers at planes and was arrested, and in 2012 a JetBlue pilot was injured by a laser pointer while flying into JFK. A flight heading into JFK from Iceland was also zapped that year.
