The Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to suddenly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.<\/p>\n
The confusing arc of events began as the FAA announced it was shutting down all flight traffic over the city on the U.S.-Mexico border for 10 days, stranding some travelers, but the closure ended up only lasting a few hours. The Trump administration said it stemmed from the FAA and Pentagon working to halt an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, which are not uncommon along the southern border.<\/p>\n
One of the people said the laser was deployed near Fort Bliss without coordinating with the FAA, which decided then to close the airspace to ensure commercial air safety. Others familiar with the matter said the technology was used despite a meeting scheduled for later this month between the Pentagon and the FAA to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n
While the restrictions were short-lived in the city of nearly 700,000 people, it is unusual for an entire airport to shut down even for a short time. Stranded travelers with luggage lined up at airline ticket counters and car rental desks before the order was lifted.<\/p>\n
Normal flights resumed after seven arrivals and seven departures were canceled. Some medical evacuation flights also had to be rerouted.<\/p>\n
Jorge Rueda, 20, and Yamilexi Meza, 21, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, had their morning flight to Portland, Oregon, canceled, so they were losing part of their Valentine\u2019s Day weekend trip.<\/p>\n
Rueda said he was glad that \u201c10 days turned into two hours.\u201d They were booked on an evening flight out of El Paso.<\/p>\n
A troubling lack of coordination<\/p>\n
The investigation into last year\u2019s midair collision near Washington, D.C., between an airliner and Army helicopter that killed 67 people highlighted how the FAA and Pentagon have not always worked well together.<\/p>\n
The National Transportation Safety Board said the FAA and the Army did not share safety data with each other about the alarming number of close calls around Reagan National Airport and failed to address the risks.<\/p>\n
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a former Army helicopter pilot who serves on committees focused on aviation and the armed services, said the issue Wednesday was the latest example of \u201cthe lack of coordination that\u2019s endemic in this Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he would request a briefing from the FAA on the incident.<\/p>\n
Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, said neither her office nor local officials received any advance notice of the closure. After it was lifted, she said \u201cthe information coming from the federal government does not add up.\u201d<\/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 at a news conference.<\/p>\n
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier that the airspace was closed as the Defense Department and the FAA halted an incursion by Mexican cartel drones and \u201cthe threat has been neutralized.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, FAA and Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Trump administration official insisted the agencies were in lockstep to protect national security and pointed to Duffy\u2019s statement. The Pentagon said it had nothing to add to its statement that largely mirrored Duffy\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Cross-border drone activity is not new<\/p>\n
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district covers an area that stretches about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) along Texas\u2019 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 everyday life for us. It\u2019s a Wednesday for us,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n
Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress in July that cartels are using drones nearly every day to transport drugs across the border and surveil Border Patrol agents. 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 said, mostly at night.<\/p>\n
What is \u201cextremely rare\u201d is the closure of an entire airport over a security issue, according to a former chief security officer at United Airlines.<\/p>\n
Officials usually will try to take security measures to isolate the risk if a specific plane or airline is threatened rather than shut down the airport, said Rich Davis, now a senior security adviser at risk mitigation company International SOS.<\/p>\n
Mexican officials question the explanation<\/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
Mexican defense and navy secretaries planned to talk with officials from U.S. Northern Command in a meeting Wednesday in Washington attended by several other countries, Sheinbaum told reporters. Sheinbaum said the Mexican officials would \u201clisten\u201d in the meeting and her government would look into \u201cthe exact causes\u201d of the closure.<\/p>\n
El Paso is a hub of cross-border commerce alongside Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez. That 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 the U.S. side of the border.<\/p>\n
That easy access to the United States also has 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
\u2018This was a major and unnecessary disruption\u2019<\/p>\n
El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson told reporters that he did not hear about the closure until after the alert was issued.<\/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 are among the carriers that operate flights there.<\/p>\n
A similar 10-day temporary flight restriction for special security reasons remained in place Wednesday 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.<\/p>\n
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat, said in a statement that he was seeking answers from the FAA and the Trump administration \u201cabout why the airspace was closed in the first place without notifying appropriate officials, leaving travelers to deal with unnecessary chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confusion for travelers<\/p>\n
Travel plans on both sides of the border were disrupted.<\/p>\n
Mar\u00eda Aracelia was pushing two roller suitcases across the pedestrian bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso on Wednesday morning. She had a round-trip flight to Illinois scheduled for the afternoon.<\/p>\n
After receiving a text at 4 a.m. telling her about the 10-day closure, she scrambled to try to find other options, even how to get to another airport. Then came a notification that the El Paso airport had reopened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is stressful, and there isn\u2019t time to make so many changes, especially if you need to get back for work,\u201d Aracelia said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1613,1818,1448,13607,13608,13609,13605,13610,4018,138,140,139,13611],"class_list":{"0":"post-163414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-airport","9":"tag-border-patrol","10":"tag-cartel","11":"tag-circulated-air-force-times","12":"tag-circulated-army-times","13":"tag-circulated-marine-corps-times","14":"tag-circulated-military-times","15":"tag-circulated-navy-times","16":"tag-drones","17":"tag-el-paso","18":"tag-el-paso-headlines","19":"tag-el-paso-news","20":"tag-military-times"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163414","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=163414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}