A lunatic aimed a powerful laser beam at an airliner flying over Long Island on its way into JFK — sending the pilot to the hospital and endangering the lives of the 84 people aboard.
The first officer on JetBlue Flight 657 from Syracuse was treated for injuries to both eyes after the blinding flash of light lit up the cockpit Sunday night — as the FBI and Suffolk cops hunted for the person responsible. He could face federal prison time.
The Embraer E190 jet landed safely, and the injured pilot — identified by sources as First Officer Robert Pemberton, 52 — was met at the gate and taken to Jamaica Hospital.
Authorities believe the beam came from around West Islip, Babylon or Lindenhurst.
“You wouldn’t think a pen laser would go that far of a distance,” said shocked West Babylon resident Cindy Konik, 50.
“They should be outlawed.”
Flight 657 — behind schedule because of weather problems — took off from Syracuse at about 8:15 p.m.
It was on its final approach to JFK — heading due west at 5,000 feet just south of West Islip, with Pemberton at the controls — when two bursts of bright green light were fired from the ground.
The startled captain, who was not identified, immediately took over the controls from his temporarily blinded colleague.
“We just got lasered up here — two green flashes into the cockpit,” the captain radioed controllers at Ronkonkoma.
“It caught the first officer’s eye — two green flashes, and it caught the first officer in the eye,” the captain said, according to a recording on the Web site LiveATC.net.
The captain asked for medical personnel to meet the plane at its gate at JFK.
Pemberton’s eyesight was not permanently damaged, said the sources.
He was expected to seek further treatment from an ophthalmologist.
“The first officer went to the hospital, and that’s pretty serious stuff,” said a federal law-enforcement source.
FBI agents request that anyone with information call the agency at (212) 384-1000.
Handheld lasers are used as pointers for presentations or business meetings.
But they have surprising range, and from miles away can bathe an aircraft cockpit in super-bright light.
Some 3,576 aircraft laser incidents were reported nationwide in 2011, a 26 percent boost over 2010.
New York-area planes were lasered 141 times last year.
So far this year, planes over the New York metro area have been hit 46 times.
Aviation experts say no one should doubt the danger.
Both pilots aboard a Southwest Airlines flight landing in Baltimore in February 2011 went to the hospital when someone fired a laser beam into their cockpit.
Luckily, that plane also landed safely.