On a fair autumn evening on Nov. 20, 2022, civilian pilot Jonathon Fay was landing his two-seater plane at Arlington Airport in Washington state when a sudden flash of blue light blinded him.
“I had to figure out how to land the plane. If I had been flying an older aircraft without the instrument visual aids, I likely would not have survived,” Fay told a federal court in Seattle on Jan. 5, 2024.
“By the grace of God, I have no permanent vision loss.”
Two-and-a-half hours later, a second plane was targeted, a four-seater being flown by a student pilot. The flight instructor on the plane captured images of the laser light source that impaired the pilot’s vision….