Blinding New Threat to Airplane Pilots.
BLITZER: The FAA is warning pilots tonight of the danger to passenger planes -- lasers. The alert comes after multiple planes were targeted by a laser pointer right before landing or after taking off. Our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, has been following this very disturbing story for us. These lasers, they can be very dangerous.</s>RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And this happened within minutes of each other. We're talking about five commercial passenger planes struck with this blinding green laser. It happened at the most critical point of flight, takeoff and landing. The flights were not very far from JFK, flying over Long Island, when multiple pilots alerted controllers. Take a listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was just a rogue laser, but they were definitely aiming for us a couple times, because we caught it a couple times into the cockpit.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got two aircrafts right over where you are got struck by a green laser. American 185, if you see a green laser, be careful. A green laser might be in your vicinity right now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American 185, we just had a laser strike, left side.</s>MARSH: Well, imagine this, you're in a car that's pitch black and a camera flash goes off. That's exactly what it's like for these pilots in the cockpit. It's a dangerous distraction; these lasers can disorient, even temporarily blind the pilot. In some cases pilots have been hospitalized with burned corneas. We do know these aircraft were at about 8,000 feet, I should say. At that level they're still communicating with air traffic control. So this is a huge distraction. Unfortunately, Wolf, we see this happen thousands of times a year. Just last year alone, nearly 4,000 incidents reported to the FAA. At this point, all those incidents that happened last night, they're under investigation. The FBI is trying to get to the bottom of this. But it's really tough to find essentially a needle in a haystack, who is that one individual shining this light? But this is a felony. So...</s>BLITZER: It certainly is. And you're also learning of a drone coming perilously close to a passenger plane. What are you learning?</s>MARSH: Well, this was a Shuttle America flight from D.C. It was going in for a landing at LaGuardia this morning. It got dangerously close to a drone, forcing the pilot to pull up and climb some 200 feet just to avoid it. The plane was at about 2,700 feet over Prospect Park in Brooklyn. We do know that police, they searched the area. They did not find the drone. They did not find the operator. But the potential danger here is, you know, essentially what happens if one of these drones gets sucked into the engine. We saw what happened with "Miracle on the Hudson" when the Canadian geese took out both engines. So that's the danger. And so now the FAA is investigating. But there are clear rules. You should not be flying it above 400 feet and you should not be flying it near an airplane or an airport.</s>BLITZER: All right, Rene, thanks very much. Disturbing information indeed. Coming up, ISIS on the move. Could a pair of deadly bombings be the start of a reign of terror in Iraq's most important city? Plus new revelations that a sex scandal is behind the alleged hush money payments by the former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.