Tennessee recorded 431 pilot-reported laser strikes in 2025, a total that places the state among the highest in the country based on the FAA’s 2025 reported-laser-incident data. While the national total fell 14% compared with the prior year, Tennessee’s continued presence near the top of those state-by-state totals signals that laser attacks on aircraft remain a serious and recurring problem in Tennessee airspace.
National Numbers Drop but Stay Elevated
Pilots across the country reported 10,994 laser strikes in 2025, a 14% decline from the 12,840 incidents logged in 2024. That two-year downward trend follows a record-setting 2023, when the FAA tallied 13,304 strikes, the highest annual count ever recorded according to reporting by the Associated Press. Even with the recent decline, the 2025 figure remains far above the levels seen a decade ago, underscoring that the hazard has become a stubborn feature of the modern aviation environment rather than a short-lived spike.
The states with the most incidents in 2025 were California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and Washington, all of which outpaced Tennessee. But Tennessee’s 431 incidents are notable given its smaller population relative to most of those states, which raises questions about whether concentrated flight corridors around Memphis and Nashville may amplify the risk. In 2024, Tennessee ranked even higher at fourth nationally with 649 reported strikes, meaning the state saw a roughly one-third drop year over year yet still could not escape the top ten. That pattern underscores how a state can experience meaningful progress on paper while pilots and regulators still confront a level of risk that remains unacceptably high.
Why a Laser Beam Is an In-Flight Emergency
A handheld laser pointer may seem harmless on the ground, but at altitude its beam can spread to fill an entire cockpit windshield with blinding light. The FBI has explained that laser strikes cause flash blindness, afterimages, and intense glare, effects that can incapacitate a pilot during the most critical phases of flight, including takeoff and landing. That risk is not theoretical: the FBI warns that laser strikes can cause flash blindness, afterimages, and glare that can compromise a pilot’s vision, especially during takeoff and landing, and notes that reported incidents have remained a persistent safety concern. For a flight crew already managing weather, traffic, and complex procedures, an unexpected burst of green or red light can instantly escalate into a safety emergency.
Because of that danger, the FAA classifies every laser illumination as an in-flight emergency until the crew determines otherwise, according to Advisory Circular 70-2B. Flight crews are directed to log details such as altitude, laser color, location, and the direction of the beam so that air traffic control can alert other aircraft and relay information to law enforcement. This reporting protocol feeds the FAA’s incident-level dataset, which tracks strikes by city, airport proximity, and time of day through a publicly available downloadable database for 2025. That granular data is what allows analysts to identify hotspots and trends at the state level, including clusters near particular approach paths or neighborhoods that may warrant targeted outreach or enforcement.
Federal Law and the Memphis Enforcement Case
Aiming a laser at an aircraft has been a federal crime since 2012, when Congress passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, Public Law 112-95. That legislation created 18 U.S.C. Section 39A, which makes it illegal to knowingly direct a laser pointer at an aircraft or its flight path, regardless of whether the person claims to be “just playing around.” Violators face up to five years in federal prison and substantial fines, a penalty steep enough to reflect how seriously lawmakers and aviation regulators treat the offense. The law operates alongside other potential charges, such as interfering with the operation of an aircraft, that can carry even stiffer penalties in the most egregious cases.
A case near Memphis illustrates how enforcement actually works in Tennessee’s airspace and how one offender can distort state statistics. After the FAA notified the FBI of repeated laser strikes affecting aircraft inbound to Memphis International Airport, a joint investigation involving the FBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the FAA tracked the source of the attacks to a residential area across the state line. Investigators identified a Mississippi man responsible for 49 separate strikes between January 1 and July 15, 2021, targeting both commercial flights and law enforcement aircraft. The defendant ultimately pleaded guilty to the federal charge, demonstrating that prosecutors are willing to pursue prison time when the conduct is repeated and reckless. That single offender accounted for dozens of incidents over roughly six months, a pattern that suggests a small number of repeat actors can dramatically inflate a region’s strike totals and push a state higher in the national rankings.
What the Rankings Reveal About Tennessee’s Risk
Most public discussion of laser strikes focuses on the national total, but state-level rankings tell a different story about where the hazard is most concentrated. Tennessee’s high totals in both 2024 and 2025 raise the possibility of volatility that can be influenced by individual offenders rather than broad population trends. The Memphis case supports that reading: one person operating near a busy airport approach path generated enough incidents to shift a state’s ranking meaningfully. When enforcement removes a repeat offender through arrest or prosecution, local incident totals can fall. But year-to-year changes can also reflect other factors such as reporting practices and traffic volume, so Tennessee’s 2025 decline should not be attributed to any single case.
Still, the state’s persistent presence in the top ten deserves scrutiny beyond individual cases. Memphis is a major cargo hub with heavy nighttime flight traffic serving freight operations, while Nashville’s rapid growth has increased commercial passenger traffic and low-altitude overflights of surrounding suburbs. Both cities feature dense approach corridors where aircraft descend to altitudes where laser beams are most dangerous and easiest to aim. The FAA’s guidance for law enforcement emphasizes coordination between federal agencies and local police, encouraging officers to treat laser complaints as serious aviation incidents rather than minor nuisances. Yet the challenge remains that a single handheld device costing only a few dollars can threaten dozens of flights before anyone is caught, particularly when the beam originates from backyards, parking lots, or moving vehicles that are difficult to pinpoint from the air.
Gaps in the Data and What Comes Next
One limitation of the FAA’s reporting system is that it captures only incidents pilots actually observe and choose to report, meaning the real number of laser illuminations is almost certainly higher than the official totals. Cockpit crews may miss brief or distant beams, or decide not to file a report if they judge the effect to be minor amid a busy workload. The voluntary nature of the system also means that reporting practices can vary by airline, airport, and region, making year-to-year comparisons somewhat noisy. Analysts caution that while the decline from 2024 to 2025 is encouraging, it is difficult to know how much of the change reflects genuine behavior shifts versus altered reporting habits, weather patterns, or changes in traffic volume.
For Tennessee, those data gaps complicate efforts to understand why the state remains a perennial hotspot and what interventions might work best. Safety advocates argue that more public education is needed to explain that shining a laser at an aircraft is not a prank but a federal crime that can cause real injuries and force pilots to divert or abort landings. Airlines and airports have begun incorporating warnings into community outreach and social media, particularly in neighborhoods under busy approach paths. At the same time, law enforcement agencies are experimenting with better tools for locating offenders, such as triangulating reports from multiple aircraft or using surveillance from police helicopters when a cluster of strikes emerges. As long as powerful lasers remain cheap and easy to obtain, Tennessee’s experience suggests that sustained enforcement, consistent reporting, and targeted education will all be required to keep the state from climbing even higher in the national rankings in future years.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
