{"id":160970,"date":"2026-02-12T03:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160970\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T03:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:43:09","slug":"el-paso-airpspace-closure-reportedly-involved-pentagon-faa-cartel-drones-lasers-and-a-party-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160970\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso airpspace closure reportedly involved Pentagon, FAA, cartel drones, lasers \u2026 and a party balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision to close airspace<\/a> over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday apparently came because of friction between the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon wanted to test a laser to shoot down drones used by Mexican drug cartels, and the FAA was concerned about maintaining the safety of commercial flights, multiple news outlets reported.<\/p>\n

Although it was first announced as lasting for 10 days, the closure lasted only a couple of hours in the city that sits along the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

The agencies reportedly had scheduled a meeting for later this month to discuss the issue, but the Pentagon wanted to proceed with the laser test. That led to the FAA\u2019s decision to close the airspace. The laser at some point was indeed used, the Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat has been neutralized,\u201d Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.<\/p>\n

But CBS News reported via unnamed sources that one of the threats in question was actually a party balloon that was shot down. One source told the news organization that at least one cartel drone also was taken out this week.<\/p>\n

Mexican cartels have used drones to smuggle drugs across the border, organize migrant border crossings and for surveillance, the AP reported. Department of Homeland Security official Steven Willoughby told Congress last July that cartels use drones almost daily.<\/p>\n

But the entire closure of a metro airport for security reasons is rare. Flights resumed in El Paso, a city of almost 700,000 people, on Wednesday morning after the cancellation of seven arrivals and seven departures.<\/p>\n

Jorge Rueda, 20, and Yamilexi Meza, 21, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, had their morning flight from El Paso to Portland canceled and were missing out on part of their Valentine\u2019s Day weekend trip, they told the AP. They were rebooked on an evening flight, and Rueda expressed relief that \u201c10 days turned into two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision to close airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday apparently came because of friction between the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-160970","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\/160970","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=160970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}