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Onion satire: Pilot about to crash

Humor publication The Onion is at it again. This time, they have written a fictitious P.A. announcement being made by a pilot who has been temporarily blinded by a laser pointer and is about to crash. In addition to the black humor, the article makes excellent points about the severity of this problem. It ends by exhorting the reader to not shine laser pointers at aircraft.

The article begins: “From the flight deck, this is your captain ....in case you're wondering why the plane feels like it's completely out of control, well, there's currently some [idiot] standing on the roof of his car down near the tarmac shining a laser pointer directly into in my eyes. I literally can't see a goddamn thing.”

The “captain” goes on to explain that “ there were almost 3,000 lasering incidents last year alone.... [t]hat's eight instances per day in which a human being—someone with a conscience who ostensibly knows the difference between right and wrong—drives to an airport, gets out of his car, and entertains himself by shining a [very bright] laser pointer directly into a pilot's eyes.”
He allows the passengers to turn on their phones and wireless devices both to call their loved ones, and to search the Internet for the terms “laser pointers and pilots”. The pilot references articles with headlines such as "Pilots Report More Danger From Laser Beams," and "FBI Probes Lasers Aimed At Plane Cockpits."

The pilot then talks about how “when you shine a laser pointer into a cockpit, it's very different from shining one on the ground.... [t]he only real payoff he will get from his ‘joke’ is a deadly plane crash.”

Finally, the pilot says that the only good thing about the situation is that if someone on the plane has shined a laser pointer at other aircraft, they should “relish in the delicious irony that you might die tonight because some other [jerk] is playing that sick little game.”

From
The Onion. Contains language intended for readers over 18 years of age, which is not safe for work.