GMAT Sentence Correction (SC) | Re: Every year, there are thousands of reports of mysterious flashing ligh

I think that there's some grey area here when it comes to "induce" vs. "inducing" -- and of course, all of the usual cautions apply about non-official questions.

Let's strip down (D) and (E) a little bit, so we can focus on the difference between "induce" and"inducing":

(D) Mysterious flashing lights in the night sky distract pilots and induce them to veer from their flight path.
(E) Mysterious flashing lights in the night sky distract pilots, inducing them to veer from their flight paths.