MEMPHIS (AP) — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to house arrest and probation for pointing a green laser at FedEx airplanes flying into Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, federal prosecutors said.

Eugene Conrad of Michigan City, Mississippi, was sentenced April 7 to nine months of home confinement and three years of probation in Memphis federal court, the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.

Conrad, 52, had faced up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in December to aiming a laser pointer at aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the FBI in July that airplanes flying into the busy Memphis airport from the east were being hit in the cockpit and cabin by a green laser coming from Hardeman County in Tennessee and Benton County in Mississippi.

Officials reported 49 strikes, mainly on FedEx airplanes, from January to July, prosecutors said.

Agents identified the origin of the lasers and found Conrad in front of a Benton County home. They found a green laser pointer in an outdoor trash can.