Man Goes to Jail for Pointing Laser at Aircraft Cockpit

Over the past few years the number of commercial airliners reporting incidents of “laser illumination” events, where someone on the ground points a laser beam at the aircraft, has increased steadly. Recently a man in Norfolk Virginia was sentenced to serve jail time for the crime.

Pointing a laser beam from a handheld laser at an aircraft can result in permanent eye damage to the pilots onboard, and can also temporally blind the pilots making controlling and landing the aircraft difficult. The safety of the airline passengers, as well as those on the ground, is severely compromised by such actions.

Prosecuting the offenders criminally in many of the reported incidents has been difficult in many cases. For this reason the government stepped in to levy heavy fines against the accused in civil actions. Recently however one man, Robert Bruce was fined $4,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised probation, for the crime.

On July 31, Bruce, and resident of Norfolk VA, pleaded guilty to repeatedly harassing U.S. Navy pilots in flight near the Naval Station Ocean at Virginia Beach, as they flew near his home between December 2011 and June 2012. In June, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service arrested Bruce after he was spotted directing a laser at pilots. According to the records, Bruce claimed the reason for his behavior was that he was upset about the noise of the aircraft.