‘Putting a lot of people at risk’: Omaha police warn against pointing lasers at pilots
By Abbie Petersen
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OMAHA, Nebraska (KETV) — The Nebraska State Patrol says it arrested a man for shining a laser at a helicopter.
The 42-year-old Lincoln man is facing federal charges.
The FAA takes these instances so seriously because they can cause pilots to go blind. The chief pilot for Omaha Police Department says they’ve had it happen several times over the years.
According to the FAA, there have been three laser incidents in Nebraska so far this year, not including the one in Lincoln. The website shows one in January even involving ABLE1.
“One it’s against the law. And two, don’t do it because you are putting a lot of people at risk,” chief pilot Frank Peck said.
Peck tells KETV he’s been flying when it happened to him, so have other OPD ABLE1 crews.
He believes some on the ground don’t realize how serious it is.
“People think it’s funny or it’s you know, that it won’t hurt anything. And they just think, well, I’ll just point a laser at an aircraft,” Peck said.
Many won’t be laughing when they are fined by the FAA $11,000-$30,000 for the felony.
“I think if you look statistically nationally, it’s happened a lot more over the years than ever. It’s kind of an ongoing trend or an upward trend, which is bad,” Peck said.
According to the FAA in 2022 there were almost 9,500 laser incidents in the U.S. and 24 of those were in Nebraska. There was even one in Bellevue last July where an injury was reported as a result of the laser.
“It can temporarily blind the pilot, which obviously would be a bad thing it’s pretty important to be able to see when you’re flying,” Peck said.
A video posted by OPD on Twitter in 2020 shows the moments people on the ground shined a laser into ABLE1.
“We use our mapping systems, our thermal systems to try to locate to locate you and get our the men and women that are on the ground to you to get you arrested,” Peck said.
Again, on top of it costing you thousands of dollars, being a federal offense & putting people in harm’s way, OPD says they just want to continue to do their job assisting their officers on the ground with no interruptions.
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