The airspace around El Paso is open again. Why did it close? : NPR

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration abruptly closed the airspace around El Paso late Tuesday night for ten days — only to reopen it hours later.

The bizarre episode left many questions unanswered, though it seemed to point to a lack of coordination between the FAA and the Pentagon.

The Trump administration blamed the brief temporary closure on an incursion into U.S. airspace by a Mexican drug cartel drone. In a social media post, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the U.S. military and FAA had acted “swiftly” to address the situation.

“The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region,” Duffy wrote in a post on X.

But that explanation did not satisfy everyone. A source on Capitol Hill who has spoken to the FAA, and was not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR it was the Defense Department that had deployed counter-drone technology before the FAA had completed its safety assessment.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas., who represents the El Paso area in Congress, also cast doubt on Duffy’s version of events.

“The statement by the administration that this shutdown was linked to a Mexican cartel drone that came into U.S. airspace — that is not my understanding,” Escobar said at a morning news conference, adding that is “not what we in Congress have been told.”

The decision to close the airspace was made by the FAA in Washington, Escobar said. The agency did not notify her or local officials in El Paso, she said.

Escobar and other local leaders say cross-border drone activity is not unusual along the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration officials have long warned that cartels are using drones for surveillance and to aid in drug smuggling.

“The information coming from the administration does not add up,” Escobar said. “And it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning.”

Whatever the reason for the closure, the result was “chaos and confusion” on the ground, El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said in a press conference.

“This should have never happened. You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership,” Johnson said, noting that medical evacuation flights had to be diverted to Las Cruces, New Mexico, about 45 miles away. “This was a major and unnecessary disruption, one that has not occurred since 9/11.”

The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he was working to gather more information about the reason for the closure.

“I’m hopeful more details can be publicly shared in the coming days on interagency coordination,” Cruz said in a statement.

KTEP’s Angela Kocherga contributed reporting from El Paso.