Laser beams, falls: It's not all kissing babies for the pope in Mexico
It hasn't been all kissing babies and warm hugs for Pope Francis in Mexico. There have been some bumps, too.
The crew that flew the pope into Mexico City on Friday noticed a laser light shining on the plane as it prepared to land, Alitalia confirmed in a statement Wednesday. The jet's captain, Massimiliano Marselli, reported the incident to the control tower, which alerted local authorities, the airline said.
Alitalia said the Airbus A330, which flew out of Havana, Cuba, landed in Mexico City without incident.
As the pope greeted crowds in the city of Morelia on Tuesday, an excited admirer grabbed onto him and pulled him down on a person in a wheelchair. Francis regained his footing with the help of security personnel, but video clips show him angrily scolding the exuberant fan.
An announcer then warned the crowd to be careful when greeting the pope.
For his part, Francis marched on, celebrating Mass and urging young people to resist the lure of easy money from dealing drugs. He pressed priests, nuns and other church representatives to fight injustice and not resign themselves to the violence and corruption that has plagued parts of the country.
The pope wraps up his six-day visit with a Mass on Wednesday at the fairgrounds of Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.5 million people across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. Large screens will be set up at El Paso's Sun Bowl stadium so the Mass can be watched there as well.
He flies home late Wednesday. If his plane's crew deals with another laser light show, it wouldn't entirely be a surprise. While the statistics for laser strikes on planes in Mexico were not available, they are a growing concern in the United States.
The Federal Aviation Administration logged a record 7,153 laser strikes through Dec. 11, up from 2,837 for all of 2010. Such strikes can temporarily blind pilots at critical times when they are taking off and landing, the riskiest parts of a flight.
The Air Line Pilots Association, a union representing 52,000 pilots, works with the FAA and FBI on educational campaigns to discourage people from pointing lasers at planes, including the phrase "Don't let a prank lead to prison."