Despite the pandemic-related decline in flying in 2020, U.S. pilots reported 6,852 laser strikes on their aircraft ─ a 12 percent increase over the previous year and the highest number recorded since 2016, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says.
The FAA considers the 2020 total, as well as the cumulative total recorded in recent years, “dangerously high,” and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson added, in a statement issued Sept. 1, “Pointing a laser at an aircraft can temporarily blind a pilot and not only affects the crew but endangers passengers and the communities they fly over every night.”
Some 57,835 laser incidents were recorded in the United States and territories between 2010 and 2020, and the number reported annually has soared since 2006, when 384 strikes were recorded, the FAA said.
The FAA attributes the increase to a number of factors, including the increased availability of inexpensive laser devices; the stronger power levels…
