The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : Bright Lights, Big City Bad for Pilots

A helicopter spotlight shining down on Los Angeles city streets often helps police catch criminals.

Now, shining a spotlight from the city streets back up to a helicopter could land criminals in jail.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office recently prosecuted a San Fernando Valley man in the first-ever case under a new California law that has made it illegal to shine a bright light at a helicopter, said Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.

The Granada Hills man was sentenced to 20 days of community service on a Caltrans or graffiti-removal crew after he pleaded guilty to one count of shining a light at an aircraft, Qualls said.

The man shone a 1.5-million candlepower spotlight at a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter circling a Mission Hills residential area where an unruly party was reportedly taking place, Qualls said.

He momentarily blinded the two-man crew, Qualls said. Though the crew members managed to regain their night vision and go on safely, the outcome could have been disastrous, Qualls said.

Though the state’s first case was prosecuted just a few weeks ago, the new law--an expansion of an older code also dealing with bright lights and aircraft--has been in effect since last August, according to Jose Garza, the deputy city attorney who prosecuted the case.

The new law was enacted in part because of numerous cases throughout California of people shining bright lights at helicopter pilots, nearly causing accidents, Garza said.

The previous law, written in 1986, often was not specific enough to prosecute them, he said.

But the recent prosecution is an example of the two laws working together, Garza said.

According to the text of the new Section 248 of the California Penal Code, it is a misdemeanor to willfully flash at a helicopter a light bright enough to impair the pilot’s ability to fly, under threat of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

Garza said this language stiffens two vague portions of the older law, which makes it a misdemeanor or felony to beam a “laser” at an occupied “aircraft.”

The new law broadens the language from “laser” to the bigger category of “a light or any bright device.”

“I don’t know too many people that have lasers,” Garza said, but more people can get hold of other bright lights.

Secondly, the new law also focuses on helicopters in addition to maintaining the older language that defines an aircraft as “any contrivance intended for and capable of transporting persons through the airspace.”

The older law also carries a misdemeanor maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

However, in cases tried as felonies, the penalties under the old law could include state prison terms up to three years and a $2,000 fine.

The coupled sections of the California Penal Code are more crucial to public safety in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Garza said, where the skies are often thick with planes and news, law enforcement and passenger-carrying helicopters.

“This is an area more used by helicopters,” he said. “Blinding a pilot could result in the loss of life.”