By Scott Weiser

Source The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

A Colorado State Patrol aircraft aborted its landing at Centennial Airport after a green laser lit up the cockpit on final approach, the agency said Friday.

The plane was inbound about 8:45 p.m. Aug. 19 when the beam hit the aircraft, according to a statement from the CSP. The crew aborted the landing and circled to find the source. The laser struck again while they were circling.

Trooper Clint Doren, who was running the onboard camera, traced the beam to a second-story balcony at a nearby apartment complex, the statement said.

“A laser strike is not a harmless prank,” Doren said. “When a laser enters a cockpit, it can cause glare, flash blindness, disorientation, or permanent eye damage. During takeoff or landing, even a momentary loss of vision can place the flight crew, passengers and people on the ground in danger.”

Troopers from the Castle Rock office contacted an adult and several juveniles at the apartment. Troopers seized the laser and forwarded the case to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Similar activity had been reported in the same area on the three previous evenings, the statement said.

Aiming a laser at an aircraft is a class 6 felony under Colorado law, punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. It’s also a federal crime punishable by fines and up to five years in prison, the patrol said. According to the FAA, civil fines can run up to $32,646.

Centennial Airport was the scene of a more damaging incident nine years earlier.

A Flight for Life helicopter on approach to Centennial after a flight from New Mexico was struck by a laser on Sept. 15, 2017. Respiratory therapist Justin Misuraca was in the co-pilot seat when the green laser hit him in the eye, he told 9News.

“I went to look out the window and a laser hit me in the eye … I looked away immediately,” Misuraca said in a 9News interview with Kyle Clark. He said he was blinded for a few seconds. The pilot also had temporary blindness and later recovered, according to 9News.

Misuraca suffered permanent eye damage.

“They said there was a burn all the way to the back of my eye, and I’m missing 30% of my vision in an upside-down V,” Misuraca told Clark in 2017. “It was only half a millimeter from my optic nerve, so I could have been blind in my right eye … and that might have stopped me from working.”

Kathleen Mayer, program director for Flight for Life, told the Fort Morgan Times in 2025 that a respiratory therapist left the job because the vision loss was so severe.

Such actions became a state felony in 2023.

Jose Alonzo Duarte-Campos, 41, was arrested in Commerce City on July 31, 2025, after commercial pilots reported a green laser in their cockpits and the patrol’s own aircraft was hit while watching him, the agency said at the time. The disposition of his case was not available as of press time.

Nationwide, pilots reported 10,993 laser strikes in 2025 and 12,840 in 2024, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. The agency has recorded 337 reported injuries since it began counting in 2010.

Devices sold as laser pointers are limited to 5 milliwatts under Food and Drug Administration rules. Higher-powered handhelds cannot legally be marketed as pointers, the FDA said, but they remain widely offered online.

The patrol asks anyone who sees a person pointing a laser at an aircraft to call local law enforcement.

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