EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Questions about a sudden airspace closure over El Paso on Wednesday drew reactions from both President Donald Trump and Rep. Tony Gonzales, who said the disruption should not happen again and called for a clearer process among federal agencies.<\/p>\n
Trump responded to a question about the airspace closure by saying, \u201cPeople learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump said “people learn” in reaction to a question about this week’s airspace closure over El Paso, TX. (credit: CNN){ }<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Gonzales spoke about the El Paso airspace closure on Wednesday, saying he and others \u201cwoke up to this in a little bit of a state of what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzales said he received a message at 1 a.m. that the airspace closure was happening. He noted he represents a district that is \u201ctwo-thirds of the Texas-Mexico border,\u201d and said a similar situation happened \u201ca couple months ago in Hudspeth County,\u201d when he got a message that airspace was going to be closed \u201cfor a long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the uncertainty surrounding the closure affected more than travel plans.<\/p>\n
This impacts our economy, this impacts just, people are anxious. They don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening. There\u2019s a lot of unknown,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cAnd when you have a lot of unknowns, nothing good comes from that.<\/p>\n
Gonzales said he worked with \u201cvarious different agencies\u201d and was at the White House on Wednesday, where he spoke with \u201cvarious different secretaries\u201d and other agencies about what was happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is, this needs to get better,\u201d he said. Gonzales called for \u201ca more streamlined process, a more transparent process,\u201d and said local municipalities should be included.<\/p>\n
Gonzales said his first call after learning about the closure was to the military to ask what was going on and whether people were safe. He said the closure was unexpected and \u201cwasn\u2019t planned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of lessons learned from it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe number one lesson learned from it is this should not happen again. We should not wake up on a Wednesday morning with our airport being closed, not knowing how long it\u2019s going to be closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is unacceptable,\u201d Gonzales said, adding, \u201cI think we\u2019re going to work towards we, the federal government is going to work towards fixing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the airspace closure in El Paso after several hours. <\/p>\n
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the airspace closure was due to a “cartel drone” breach.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon released the following statement:<\/p>\n
Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace. The Department of War took action to disable the drones. The FAA and DOW have determined there is no threat to commercial travel.<\/p>\n
RELATED: FAA lifts El Paso airspace closure after cartel drone breach, federal officials say<\/a><\/p>\n