Shining a laser at a plane is one of the silliest things that a person can do, if you ask pilot Sabrina Johnson (who goes by @sabrinaleej).
In fact, she does not recommend it at all. Anyone who is dumb enough to do it is actually placing themselves in danger of getting into big trouble.
“If you think it’s funny to shoot a laser at an airplane, it’s not,” she says in a now-viral TikTok video. “Let’s talk about why you can go to jail.” This is crucial information for anyone who is thinking of doing something this foolish.
Sabrina went on to share a story of how someone ended up shining a laser at a plane when she was working as a flight instructor.
LaGuardia Tower was contacted and it was not long before the Feds were contacted. This should give people a strong idea of how seriously these things are taken. Once the FBI got involved, things got very real, very quickly. They called Sabrina back and let her know that they had narrowed down the location of the person who had been pointing the laser.
The FBI knew that the person was located within a 0.3 mile radius, in case you want an even better idea of how quickly they act when someone decided to shine lasers at planes.
“They will find you,” Johnson shares. “They take this so seriously.” The Federal Aviation Administration considers this to be a federal crime so think twice before doing this.
You can be fined up to $250,000 and face up to 5 years in prison, in case you thought that this was the type of thing that could be ignored. “This is why I just wave to planes,” said one of Sabrina’s viewers and we could not agree more. We would never even think to shine a light at a plane and this video did not encourage us to do so.
@sabrinaleej Shooting lasers at airplanes? #pilotsoftiktok #airlinepilot #travel #femalepilot #helicopter #helicopter #nyc
“People forget that lasers work both ways. You are literally telling the pilot exactly where you are,” another viewer correctly observed. “If you actually blind a pilot with the laser, and you are the reason people end up hurt because of that, you’re probably going to jail a lot longer than just a stupid fine,” Sabrina concludes.