FISHER

A first officer leans out of a side window of a Boeing 737 airplane to clean his half of the front windows.

(BILL FEIG/AP file photo)

It appears that someone is at it again: A commercial airline pilot flying over Portland Friday night reported that someone pointed a green laser beam at the side of the plane.

The Boeing 737 had ust taken off from Portland International Airport and was heading west, about three miles into its trip, when the pilot noticed the laser beam on the right side of the aircraft, which was flying at about 1,000 feet.

Kama Simonds, an airport spokeswoman, said the pilot notified authorities but didn't follow-up with a report once the plane landed at its destination. Simonds said as a result, she has little information about the incident.

The FBI reported nearly 4,000 incidents of laser beams pointed at U.S. aircraft in 2013, and has begun an aggressive campaign to crack down on violators. Directing laser pointers at aircraft is a violation of federal law because it can blind pilots -- endangering people in planes and on the ground below.

It can be extraordinarily difficult to catch the culprits.

Portland has had one of the nation's highest frequencies of laser strikes, FBI Special Agent Jake Green wrote in an affidavit in 2013. The airport had 120 incidents in 2012, he wrote.

Although specific numbers weren't available, PDX experienced a spike of these incidents in 2013. That led to the arrest of a Northeast Portland man, who said he was overcome by the death of his girlfriend and used prescription painkillers and his laser pointer to help him deal with his grief.

Stephen Bukucs, 40, was sentenced in March 2015 to six months in federal lock-up.

The FBI, Portland police and Port of Portland police tracked down Bukucs by flying two decoy airplanes in August 2013. One of the planes was targeted by a laser beam, and police relayed the general location of the beam to officers on the ground.

Officers spotted a laser coming from an apartment at Northeast 99th Avenue and Northeast Irving Street, secretly installed a surveillance camera outside the unit and ultimately arrested Bukucs after catching him in the act.

-- Aimee Green

503-294-5119