{"id":182628,"date":"2026-02-27T07:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/182628\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T07:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:08:12","slug":"faa-closes-airspace-in-fort-hancock-texas-after-reported-accidental-use-of-anti-drone-laser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/182628\/","title":{"rendered":"FAA closes airspace in Fort Hancock, Texas after reported accidental use of anti-drone laser"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US military accidentally shot down a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drone with a laser on Thursday, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to\u00a0close the airspace\u00a0<\/a>near El Paso, Texas, according to multiple reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The FAA cited \u201cspecial security reasons\u201d in its notice expanding an existing prohibition on all flight operations near the border town of Fort Hancock \u2013 about 50 miles southeast of El Paso \u2013\u00a0 through June 24,\u00a0according to Reuters<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA temporary flight restriction (TFR) was already in place around the Fort Hancock area,\u201d an FAA spokesperson told The Post. \u201cThe TFR has been expanded to include a greater radius to ensure safety.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SatelliteThe Federal Aviation Administration barred flights around the area of Fort Hancock, Texas, after a military laser-based\u00a0anti-drone system\u00a0was allegedly used by the Pentagon to accidentally shoot down a US government drone. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

The FAA said the restrictions do not impact commercial flights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a joint statement, the Department of War, CBP and FAA said Thursday\u2019s incident was aimed at taking out a \u201cseemingly threatening unmanned aerial system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt President Trump\u2019s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the US-Mexico Border,\u201d the statement read.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis reported engagement occurred when the Department of War employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace,\u201d it continued. \u201cThe engagement took place far away from populated areas and there were no commercial aircraft in the vicinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AerialThe Pentagon didn\u2019t comment, but the FAA later said \u201cspecial security reasons\u201d was the reason why flights were halted across the area. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThese agencies will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future. The bottom line is the Trump Administration is doing more to secure the border and crack down on cartels than any administration in history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The use of high-energy, anti-drone lasers led the FAA to briefly ground all flights near the same area earlier this month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A source familiar with the earlier incident told The Post that Department of Homeland Security special forces\u00a0fired the laser at what was believed to be a cartel drone<\/a>, but turned out to be a mylar balloon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest incident left top Democratic lawmakers on committees overseeing aviation and Homeland Security issues fuming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur heads are exploding over the news that DoD reportedly shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone using a high risk counter-unmanned aircraft system,\u201d Reps. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Andr\u00e9 Carson (D-Ind.) said in a\u00a0joint statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said months ago that the White House\u2019s decision to sidestep a bipartisan, tri-committee bill to appropriately train C-UAS operators and address the lack of coordination between the Pentagon, DHS and the FAA was a short-sighted idea,\u201d the lawmakers added. \u201cNow, we\u2019re seeing the result of its incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US military accidentally shot down a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drone with a laser on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4018,2399,66059,27,29,28,15103,734],"class_list":["post-182628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-drones","tag-faa","tag-lasers","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-pentagon","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182628","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=182628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}