{"id":160240,"date":"2026-02-11T17:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160240\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:33:07","slug":"faa-abruptly-closes-then-reopens-el-paso-airspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160240\/","title":{"rendered":"FAA abruptly closes, then reopens, El Paso airspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Mexican cartel drone incursion prompted an hourslong closure of airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas that was lifted on Wednesday morning, the Trump administration said.<\/p>\n

Just hours earlier, the Federal Aviation Administration<\/a> had announced a 10-day closure grounding all flights to and from the airport.<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department \u201cacted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.\u201d He said normal flights were resuming Wednesday morning, but did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.<\/p>\n

The shutdown \u201cfor special security reasons\u201d had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office referred questions to the FAA.<\/p>\n

Steven Willoughby, the deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told lawmakers in July that nearly every day cartels are using drones to try to bring drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border and surveil Border Patrol agents.<\/p>\n

More than 27,000 drones were detected within 1,600 feet of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he testified, most flying late at night. Homeland Security has said agents have seized thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl and other drugs in recent years that cartels were trying to fly across the border using drones.<\/p>\n

Mexican officials head to Washington following shutdown<\/p>\n

El Paso, a border city<\/a> with a population of nearly 700,000 people and larger when you include the surrounding metro area, is hub of cross-border commerce alongside the neighboring city of Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez in Mexico. The brief closure did not include Mexican airspace.<\/p>\n

Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez is home to about 1.5 million people, and some of its residents are accustomed to taking advantage of facilities including airports on both sides of the border. That easy access to the U.S. has also made Juarez, like other border cities, attractive to Mexico\u2019s drug cartels that seek control in order to safeguard their smuggling routes for drugs and migrants headed north and cash and guns moving to the south.<\/p>\n

The airport said in an Instagram post after the closure was announced that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded through late on Feb. 20, including commercial, cargo and general aviation flights. Local newscasts showed stranded travelers with luggage lining up at airline ticket counters and car rental desks at the El Paso airport hours after flights were grounded. The airport posted Wednesday morning that its operations had resumed and encouraged travelers to contact their airlines for the most up-to-date flight information.<\/p>\n

Mexican defense and navy secretaries will meet with Northern Command officials in Washington on Wednesday in a meeting attended by several other countries, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said during a news conference. Sheinbaum said the Mexican officials would \u201clisten\u201d in the meeting.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum said her government was going to look into \u201cthe exact causes\u201d of the closure. Asked about the explanation given by U.S. officials, she said she had \u201cno information about the use of drones on the border.\u201d She noted that if U.S. authorities have more information they should contact Mexico\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

\u2018The information … does not add up\u2019<\/p>\n

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, had urged the FAA to lift the restrictions in a statement Wednesday morning, saying neither her office, the city of El Paso nor airport operations received advance notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the FAA owes the community and the country an explanation as to why this happened so suddenly and abruptly and was lifted so suddenly and abruptly.\u201d Escobar said during a news conference Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information coming from the federal government does not add up,\u201d Escobar said.<\/p>\n

Escobar later said she believed the shutdown was not based on Mexican cartel drones in U.S. airspace, saying that \u201cis not what we in Congress have been told.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about Escobar\u2019s remarks, Pentagon officials said they didn\u2019t have a comment.<\/p>\n

The airport describes itself as the gateway to west Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Mexico. Southwest, United, American and Delta all operate flights there, among others.<\/p>\n

A similar 10-day temporary flight restriction for special security reasons remained in place Wednesday morning around Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which is about 15 miles northwest of the El Paso airport. FAA officials did not immediately explain why that restriction remained in place.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, a Democrat, said in a statement: \u201cKeeping our communities informed and safe is critical. I\u2019m demanding answers from the FAA and the administration about why the airspace was closed in the first place without notifying appropriate officials, leaving travelers to deal with unnecessary chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Darlene Superville, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Mexican cartel drone incursion prompted an hourslong closure of airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-160240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}