A drone flies past a U.S. government surveillance tower near the U.S.-Mexico border on Sept. 27, 2022 in Yuma, Arizona.<\/p>\n
John Moore | Getty Images News | Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) barred flights on Thursday in an area around Fort Hancock, Texas, after\u00a0lawmakers said a military\u00a0laser-based\u00a0anti-drone\u00a0system\u00a0was believed to have been\u00a0used by the Pentagon to\u00a0accidentally shoot down a U.S. government\u00a0drone.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0FAA\u00a0and Pentagon did not immediately comment, but the\u00a0FAA\u00a0cited “special security reasons” in its notice about the restrictions on the\u00a0airspace\u00a0near the Mexican border.<\/p>\n
U.S. Representatives Rick Larsen, Bennie Thompson and Andre Carson, top Democrats on committees overseeing aviation and Homeland Security issues, said in a joint statement the Pentagon\u00a0reportedly shot down a Customs and Border Protection\u00a0drone (CBP), and criticized the lack of coordination.<\/p>\n
Congressional aides told Reuters the Pentagon was believed to have\u00a0used the high-energy\u00a0laser\u00a0system to\u00a0accidentally shoot down the CBP\u00a0drone\u00a0near the Mexican border, in an area that often has incursions from Mexican\u00a0drones\u00a0used by drug cartels. CBP and the White House\u00a0did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
In February, the\u00a0FAA\u00a0said it was halting traffic for 10 days at the airport in nearby El Paso,\u00a0Texas, only to\u00a0reverse course\u00a0and lift its order\u00a0after\u00a0about eight hours.\u00a0Fort\u00a0Hancock\u00a0is about 50 miles (80 km) from El Paso.<\/p>\n
Reuters and other media\u00a0reported\u00a0that closure stemmed from concerns about the\u00a0use\u00a0of the\u00a0laser-based\u00a0anti-drone\u00a0system and that the\u00a0FAA\u00a0had agreed to drop its restrictions around El Paso if the Pentagon agreed to delay further testing pending an\u00a0FAA\u00a0safety review.<\/p>\n
Aides said there was a lack of coordination between the\u00a0FAA\u00a0and the Pentagon. The government informed congressional offices about the El Paso closure as well as the\u00a0Fort\u00a0Hancock\u00a0incident late on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0FAA\u00a0notice barred all flights in the\u00a0Fort\u00a0Hancock\u00a0area but said air ambulance or search and rescue flights can be authorized with the Joint Task Force-Southern Border. The flight restrictions are to last until June 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drone flies past a U.S. government surveillance tower near the U.S.-Mexico border on Sept. 27, 2022 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2221,31,9853,917,4017,504,19693,72695,72696,287,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-182753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","9":"tag-airlines","10":"tag-breaking-news-politics","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-defense","13":"tag-federal-aviation-administration","14":"tag-l3harris-technologies-inc","15":"tag-lockheed-martin-corp","16":"tag-northrop-grumman-corp","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-texas-headlines","20":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182753","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=182753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}