Some asshat (or multiple asshats) is shining lasers at planes landing at Sea Tac airport. There have been at least half a dozen incidents of lasers shined at some 20-odd planes since February 2009, and while I don’t know for sure how dangerous that actually is, it is not cool regardless. Not cool. These are aircraft, and if anything were to go wrong and the plane were to crash, however remote that possibility, hundreds of people would surely die. You just don’t mess around with things like that, no matter what. Period.
And yet we keep seeing these stories in the local news. Police took a man into custody last month, but released him without charging him. I don’t know what that’s all about, but how hard can it really be to find someone shining lasers at planes? The planes even have surveillance footage of some of the shinings – the Seattle Times published one of these videos last month, and you could clearly see the backyard the laser was coming from.
One commenter in the Times story speculates that it could be someone angry with the controversial third runway that was installed at Sea Tac. Well, that may be, but then they should bring it up with the appropriate venue, move somewhere else, or simply get over it. One thing is for sure, the people flying on that plane have nothing to do with the price of tea in China, and don’t deserve to be endangered by this kind of juvenile behavior.
To the the person(s) doing this: knock it off. It’s not funny, and no one thinks you’re clever. When you get caught – and you will get caught – everyone will think you’re nothing but a loser. So beat it and go find something else to waste your time on. Preferably something that doesn’t endanger other peoples’ lives.
