A man could face 5 years in prison for pointing a laser at a Delta Air Lines flight

• A Delta Air Lines pilot reported a laser pointed at his plane while approaching a New York airport.
• Police couldn't initially find the laser until an annoyed neighbor called them, the complaint says.

A 29-year-old could face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after being accused of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft, prosecutors said.

In a complaint filed earlier this month, which was viewed by Business Insider, investigators said the man, Joseph Crapsi, aimed a green laser pointer at a Delta Air Lines flight arriving at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York at around midnight on March 1.

It adds that while on approach, the pilot told air-traffic control that a laser was being aimed at the jet for between 60 and 90 seconds from a location about a mile south of its position.

Police searched the area the pilot described but couldn't initially find the laser's origin.

About half an hour after the pilot's report, a man called the police to report that his neighbor was shining a laser into his house. The defendant's parents let the police into their home, where they found a SolidKraft high-powered tactical laser pointer, the complaint wrote.

An Amazon listing for a similar-looking device says the "ultra-visible green beam" can be seen up to 1,000 feet away at night.

The neighbor told police he watched the laser pointer for around 15 minutes, saw it pointed to the sky several times, and has witnessed this happening several times over the past few months.

On Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a reminder on X about laser-pointer incidents.

"Shining lasers at airplanes and helicopters puts lives at risk. Laser strikes are also a federal crime," it said.

The FAA said in January that laser strikes on airplanes were at an all-time high last year and that it received more than 13,000 reports from pilots about these incidents — a 41% increase from the year before.