WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal officials abruptly closed the airspace over El Paso, Texas, for several hours early Wednesday due to what the Trump administration said was Mexican cartel drone activity, temporarily grounding flights and angering local officials who said they were given no advanced warning.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration originally announced a 10-day closure of the airspace, confusing travelers at the airport in El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 people. The order was lifted a few hours later. No Mexican airspace was closed.<\/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 Duffy said normal flights were resuming Wednesday morning. He did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.<\/p>\n
Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, said neither her office, the city of El Paso nor airport operations received advance notice. She 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
Pentagon declined to comment on Escobar\u2019s remarks and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office referred questions to the FAA.<\/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. The shutdown had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area around El Paso. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe information coming from the federal government does not add up,\u201d Escobar said. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCross-border drone activity is not new<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district covers an area that stretches for about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) along Texas’ border with Mexico, said cartel drone sightings are common.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor any of us who live and work along the border, daily drone incursions by criminal organizations is every-day life for us. It\u2019s a Wednesday for us,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n
Asked about the drone explanation provided by U.S. officials, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum 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
Steven Willoughby, the deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told lawmakers in July that cartels are using drones nearly every day to transport drugs across the border and surveil Border Patrol agents. <\/p>\n
More than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters (1,600 feet) of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he testified, mostly 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
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMexican officials head to Washington<\/p>\n
El Paso is hub of cross-border commerce alongside Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez. The Mexican city 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 seeking to safeguard their smuggling routes for drugs and migrants headed north and cash and guns moving to the south.<\/p>\n
El Paso International Airport said in an Instagram post after the closure was announced that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded through 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. <\/p>\n
The airport posted later 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 representatives of several other countries, Sheinbaum said during a news conference. Sheinbaum said the Mexican officials would \u201clisten\u201d in the meeting and that her government would look into \u201cthe exact causes\u201d of the closure. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t‘This was a major and unnecessary disruption’<\/p>\n
El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said at a news conference that he didn\u2019t hear about the closure until after the alert was issued and he called the failure to communicate that to the city unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecisions made without notice and coordination puts lives at risk and creates unnecessary danger and confusion,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis was a major and unnecessary disruption, one that has not occurred since 9\/11.\u201d<\/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 (24 kilometers) 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
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press reporters Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Mike Balsamo and Konstantin Toropin in Washington; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Mar\u00eda Verza in Mexico City contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal officials abruptly closed the airspace over El Paso, Texas, for several hours early Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40924,36964,25381,58160,557,138,140,139],"class_list":{"0":"post-160285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-ap-business","9":"tag-ap-politics","10":"tag-ap-u-s-news","11":"tag-ap-world-news","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-el-paso","14":"tag-el-paso-headlines","15":"tag-el-paso-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160285","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=160285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}