Travelers assume that this is a rare mainland prank. Yet Hawaii has one of the nation’s highest rates. If you have flown to Hawaii lately, here is a risk that none of us probably ever thought to worry about. It turns out to be more common in our skies than it is in nearly any other part of the country.

We are talking about lasers. Specifically, people on the ground aiming handheld laser pointers up at aircraft. Travelers who have heard of it at all likely file it in their minds under rare mainland prank, a reckless stunt that happens elsewhere, to someone else. So it surprised even us to see the U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii put it this plainly today:

“Hawaii has one of the highest rates of aircraft lasing in the nation.” — Ken Sorenson, U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii.

That is what got our attention. Not because it sounds dramatic, but because it places Hawaii at the center of a flight safety problem that most visitors never associate with the islands when they are flying here for a vacation in Hawaii.

And it is not the first time we have raised this. Back in 2023, when the FBI and police on Kauai and Maui issued warnings about lasers being pointed at aircraft here, we noted the practice had been going on for years without, as far as we could tell, a single arrest. We asked why. Now there is at least an answer: a guilty plea, a sentencing date, and a coordinated federal crackdown.

Why pilots fear this more than passengers do.

Someone pointing a laser at a plane doesn’t adequately explain what is really happening when a beam finds an airliner cockpit. A high-powered laser aimed into a flight deck can impair a pilot’s vision at the precise moment when seeing clearly is most critical.

Federal officials describe it as a direct threat to the pilot, the passengers, and everyone below. The FBI’s Honolulu office was blunt today that this is not a prank, because a bright enough beam can disorient a pilot during a critical phase of flight and interfere with safe aircraft operations.

The devices doing it are not always what buyers think they are. The U.S. Attorney’s office warns that laser pointers sold online are often mislabeled regarding class and power output, meaning something marketed as a harmless pointer can emit far more energy than it is advertised or than the user realizes. The person buying it online may think it is a gadget, not a federal crime waiting to happen.

Here’s the part that makes sense from Hawaii.

The danger is not over the open ocean on long overwater flights. It is right around the airport. Laser strikes occur low and close to the runway during takeoff and landing, when the cockpit can least afford a blinded pilot. And Hawaii has more of them, per person, than anywhere else in the country. The FAA has said the islands top the nation in per-capita laser strikes. The reasons reportedly come down to two things: good weather means people are outside at night year-round, and Hawaii’s airports sit close to the neighborhoods around them.

This is not a hypothetical problem, and it does relate to airlines. In recent years, passenger flights have been hit here in Hawaii, at the very airports you fly into. A Delta flight departing Honolulu for Seattle was struck by a green laser beam during takeoff. The laser beam was reported by Hawaii News Now to have come from Sand Island, very close to HNL airport. On Kauai and Maui, pilots have also reported their aircraft lit up by green lasers as they came in to land, with Maui incidents clustered around both Kahului and Kapalua. And in one recent eight-month period, according to FAA figures reported at the time, Hawaii logged 99 laser incidents, most of them around Honolulu and the rest across Kauai and Maui.

That does not mean travelers should board their next flight to Hawaii worried. It means the people responsible for keeping those flights safe are right to treat this as anything but a prank.

The Maui case that put a face on the laser problem.

The federal case now moving toward sentencing involves Jesse Kong, 30, of Maui, who pleaded guilty in April to being an accessory after the fact to a laser-pointer assault on a federal pilot. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kong bought a laser pointer online and loaned it to an associate who, with Kong also present, aimed it at an aircraft and into the cockpit, disorienting the pilot and interfering with operations.

The aircraft in this case just happened to be a federal one, an FBI plane, which is why the conduct here can carry a charge of assault on a federal officer. The lasers your own pilot faces on approach to Honolulu, Kahului, Kona or Lihue are the same hazard aimed at ordinary passenger flights.

Kong was not accused of being the actual person who aimed the laser. The government says he supplied the laser; however, he then falsely told FBI agents that the responsible people had already left, helping his associate avoid apprehension. Kong pleaded guilty to the lesser accessory offense and faces up to six months in prison when he is sentenced on June 17.

The broader federal exposure is much steeper. Knowingly aiming a laser at an aircraft is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and when the aircraft is federally operated, the conduct can also be charged as assault on a federal officer.

The good part is that the issue may be declining.

This is not a piece meant to scare anyone away from flying to Hawaii. The more useful takeaway is that a strange and dangerous problem is being treated seriously, and the early trend line is moving in the right direction.

The FAA says laser strikes in Hawaii were down 10.6% during the first five months of 2026. The agency credits enforcement and its public “Lose the Laser” campaign for helping move the numbers in the right direction.

Pilots and aviation crews report laser strikes to air traffic control and the FAA. Federal officials are also urging members of the public to contact authorities when they see someone aiming a laser at any aircraft.

That does not mean the problem is gone. It does suggest that when pilots report the problem, and federal agencies prosecute the incidents, while the public understands the danger, the behavior can be reduced.

So the next time you fly into Hawaii, this probably will not be the thing on your mind. You will be watching the coast come into view, waiting for the wheels to touch down at HNL, or thinking about your drive from the airport.

But above that familiar arrival is this reality. Hawaii’s skies are more vulnerable to ground-level recklessness than most travelers ever realize. Federal officials are now saying that plainly, and we’ll be watching what happens when Kong is sentenced on June 17.

Hawaii joined the rest of the nation recently by joining a computer network run by the U.S. Department of Justice that captures, stores and compares digital images of ballistic evidence pulled from shell casings found at gun crime scenes.

Until now, police departments in Hawaii had their own separate policies and procedures for gathering, analyzing and comparing evidence from spent shell casings at crime scenes. That process was measured in weeks or months, a frustrating timetable in an era of privately manufactured “ghost guns” and criminals who quickly move firearms around the state and nation.

But thanks to $250,000 in federal funding from the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, the four county police departments and the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement will be able to analyze evidence from gun crimes and make connections and identifications in near real time.

Hawaii is among the last states to join the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, a specialized automated computer network administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The computer system linking Hawaii to the national network and components used to analyze cartridges and casings are housed in an office at the end of a hallway on the third floor of the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement’s King Street headquarters.

Established in 1999, NIBIN allows federal, state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies to capture, store and compare digital images of ballistic evidence, according to the ATF.

By analyzing the unique “fingerprints” left behind on cartridge cases when a gun is fired, NIBIN connects “seemingly unrelated shooting incidents, traces the history of crime guns, and helps identify violent repeat offenders” across jurisdictional boundaries, federal officials say.

Mike Lambert, director of the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement, led the effort to get the state and counties hooked into NIBIN. Lambert has been working to get better data and the ability to trace guns used in crimes since he worked as a major leading the Honolulu Police Department’s Narcotics/Vice division.

He said getting the counties integrated into the network is a “huge step forward for law enforcement” in terms of using advancements to unify and enhance crime gun intelligence statewide. The NIBIN machine is the “first of its kind” in Hawaii and will help all four county police departments address gun violence by finding connections between firearms, shell casings and ammunition found at crime scenes,” Lambert said.

“We haven’t had this technology, ever, and we’re grateful to our friends (at HIDTA and ATF) to fund this project so that we can keep Hawaii one of the safest states in the nation,” said Lambert, speaking to reporters at DLE headquarters Tuesday. “If somebody wants to fire a gun in our state, we’re going to put it into this system and we’re going to bring people to justice.”

Lambert provided an example of how the network may work. If police officers respond to a reported shooting and all they have is a suspect description and shell casings, the casings will be collected and analyzed. If another gun crime incident is reported and a suspect is arrested, if the casings match up, the crimes can be linked.

“It’s not necessarily the same shooter at every scene but what we would understand is that this gun is being used. A lot of the time when you are dealing with organized crime or gangs then it would point toward a certain group of individuals … It may point to the same individual,” Lambert said.

Generally speaking, law enforcement recovers fired cartridge casings from crime scenes or test-fires confiscated firearms, according to the ATF. Technicians use the Integrated Ballistic Identification System platform to “take high-resolution 2D or 3D images” of the markings left on the casing (such as firing pin impressions and breech face marks).

The digital signatures are uploaded to the network and “instantly compared against millions of existing images” in the national database.

If the system identifies highly similar markings, it flags a potential match known as a NIBIN Lead, according to federal officials. Before a lead can be used as “definitive evidence in court,” a certified firearms examiner performs a manual, side-by-side microscopic comparison of the physical casings to confirm a NIBIN hit, according to the ATF.

A statewide standard for establishing chain of custody with evidence is being set up and all police departments will follow the same procedures to ensure the evidence gathered holds up in court. Several cases have been referred for NIBIN analysis, Lambert said but he declined to share which cases, citing ongoing criminal investigations.

He is also hopeful the data will help law enforcement understand the ghost gun issue in Hawaii.

The number of ghost guns recovered from crime scenes or seized during investigations in 2024 jumped to 88 from 52 the prior year.

A ghost gun is a privately made firearm not marked with a serial number and is almost impossible for law enforcement to trace, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The biggest issue we have in Honolulu is we don’t know how many illegally manufacture firearms there are. Whenever we have a casing and it’s something that we don’t have any evidence on or knowledge of, that can start to give us clues about how many weapons are here that were manufactured locally, once we find the actual gun itself,” said Lambert.

Jonathan Blais, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Seattle Field Division which oversees Hawaii, said Tuesday that the NIBN technology is a “powerful, proven tool” that transforms evidence into actual intelligence.

“NIBN is the cornerstone of our technology arsenal. It allows investigators to identify links between shootings by comparing the unique markings left on cartridge casings when a firearm is discharged,” Blais said. “By analyzing and comparing unique markings left on spent shell casings recovered from crime scenes, we can link seemingly unrelated shootings, uncover patterns of criminal activity that might otherwise go undetected and disrupt cycles of violence before they escalate. A successful program relies on both comprehensive collection of all firearm casings collected at crime scenes as well as timely submission of test-fired casings from firearms in law enforcement custody.”

The NIBIN system in Hawaii was dedicated Tuesday in honor of fallen Maui police officer Suzanne O, who was shot and killed in the line of duty while responding to a terroristic threatening call in Paia in August.

Wade Maeda, Deputy Police Chief of the Maui Police Department, said the dedication was meaningful to MPD because the system bears her name.

“Officer O dedicated her life to serving and protecting the people of Maui County with courage, compassion, and professionalism. That commitment aligns with this tool that helps bring justice to victims, and accountability to offenders.While officer O is deeply missed, her impact continues to be felt every day,” Maeda said.

Maeda was joined Tuesday by HPD interim Chief Rade Vanic and Kauai Police Department chief Rudy Tai.

“For our local law enforcement, this NIBN site means faster access to critical investigating information instead of waiting weeks or months for connections to emerge, officers and detectives can develop this in near real time, helping them identify suspects, solve cases and prevent future acts of violence,” Blais said. “Every cartridge case entered in NIBN has the potential to tell a story and every lead generated through NIBN represents an opportunity to intervene before another crime occurs. Most importantly, the benefits of NIBN extend far beyond law enforcement. This technology helps remove violent offenders from our streets, disrupts cycles of retaliatory violence and delivers justice to victims and their families.”

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Police executed a search warrant at an alleged illegal gambling room in Mililani Tuesday.

Around 5 p.m., officers with the Honolulu Police Department’s Narcotics/Vice Division Gambling Detail, along with other specialized units, conducted a search of a property on Waimakua Place.

According to police, investigators recovered illegal drugs, 18 gambling machines, and more than $11,000 in cash.

All items were seized and submitted as evidence.

An investigation is underway, but no arrests have been made.

To report illegal gambling, call the Narcotics/Vice 24-hour hotline at (808) 723-3933 or click here to submit a tip online.