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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The hunt is on to find the person who blinded several pilots with a laser. The strikes happened between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Wednesday night near Dallas Love Field. Southwest Airlines and a private business jet pilots were hit.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration explained that both of the airplanes were approaching Dallas Love Field at altitudes between 3,000 feet and 4,000 feet. The Southwest Airlines jet was coming in from Austin.
There were no problems reported with any of the flights, and nobody was injured.
However, this is still very dangerous — and common — according to a North Texas pilot. “When it’s nighttime, the lights in the cockpit are dim. We’re trying to focus on exterior visual cues, which is the approach lights, the runway lights. And, instead, we are being blinded by this huge green light that’s being shown in our cockpits,” the pilot said. “It’s not cool and it’s really totally distracting.”
“The danger is that they are in the final approach,” said Jose L. Torres, spokesperson for Dallas Love Field. “That’s when they have to be very… they are concentrating on what they are doing. They’ve got the landing gear deployed, the flaps deployed. They are slowing down, the nose down when something like that happens it’s like somebody is taking a picture of you with a flash and you are temporary blind.”
Just two days ago, the pilot said, air controllers were warning about similar laser incidents in the Las Vegas area. Three news helicopters were also hit by lasers in New York City on Wednesday night, including the chopper for CBS New York. There have been 5,000 reports of aircraft being hit by lasers this year, the FAA said, including 115 in the DFW area.
The two laser shots both came from the same vicinity, about 11 miles southeast of Dallas. Police sent up a helicopter to look for the source, but did not find any suspects. This is a federal crime and, if a suspect is caught, it could result in jail time.
