El Paso: Why Anti-Drone Laser May Have Backfired and Led to Airport Closure

U.S. forces deployed an anti-drone laser weapon close to El Paso airport in Texas earlier this week, according to new reports, sparking an airspace closure lasting several hours, widespread confusion and calls for answers from lawmakers.

The system, developed by American defense company AeroVironment, is a directed energy weapon dubbed Locust used by the U.S. Army, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The Federation Aviation Administration (FAA), responsible for U.S. civil aviation and regulation, stopped air traffic around El Paso for more than seven hours after it raised concerns that the anti-drone system could threaten commercial airliners, the news agency reported, citing anonymous government and airline officials.

Two unnamed sources told the Associated Press that the Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser this week. President Donald Trump’s administration, meanwhile, did not mention the use of a laser weapon but said military force was used to tackle a drone incursion by the border.

El Paso is home to the U.S. Army’s sprawling Fort Bliss installation. Newsweek has contacted the FAA, and a Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment.

Finding new, cheap ways to take down inexpensive drone threats has been a top priority for many militaries across the world, with the race to develop effective directed-energy weapons rather than using up costly interceptor missiles gathering pace. Lasers and high frequency radio waves are both examples of directed-energy weapons now becoming more and more commonplace along with interceptor drones.

The FAA issued an unexpected Notice to Airmen on Wednesday, restricting flights over El Paso for the following 10 days for “special security reasons.” The FAA offered no further information on the nature of these security reasons and a few hours later announced the limitations had been lifted around the border city.

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA and the Pentagon had responded to a “cartel drone incursion,” adding that the “threat has been neutralized.” He did not specify how exactly U.S. forces had responded.

El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson told the BBC that local officials in the city were not warned in advance of the airspace closure and experienced “complete chaos.” Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district covers El Paso, said neither her office, El Paso officials nor personnel at the airport were told about the FAA closure in advance.

“To be clear: this was the result of incompetence at the highest levels of the administration,” Escobar said. “Next for me and my team is ensuring our community gets all the answers we deserve and that no other community has to deal with what we had to endure.”

Republican Representative Tony Gonzales, who was elected to represent swaths of southwestern Texas, said on Wednesday that drone incursions were a daily occurrence on the border, adding: “For us in the El Paso area, it literally happens every day. For the first time, the U.S. government is now starting to counter some of these things.”

The Trump administration has been explicit in its mission to crack down on cartels, framing the criminal organizations as an existential threat to Americans and bearing down on Mexican officials to up the pressure south of the U.S. border.

The U.S. military estimated in early 2024 that there were more than 1,000 drone incursions along the U.S. border with Mexico each month. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexican officials had no information to indicate drones at the border but urged U.S. authorities to engage with the country’s government.

Big questions still loom over how to safely deploy military lasers to tackle waves of drone threats close to civilian areas and infrastructure.

“You shoot a laser at a drone, it could travel a long way and could hit another aircraft,” Stacie Pettyjohn, an expert on drones with the Center for a New American Security, told The New York Times. Other military equipment, such as jammers, could interfere with commercial airplanes, Pettyjohn added.

Passenger airliners in Europe have for several years reported interference with their navigation systems around areas known for housing powerful jammers, including Russia’s Kaliningrad region.

AeroVironment said in December that it had handed over two anti-drone laser weapons mounted on Joint Light Tactical Vehicles to the U.S. Army. The company had delivered another two laser weapons fixed onto light tactical vehicles in September.