The top US aviation agency has lifted a surprise 10-day closure of airspace above the US-Mexico border town of El Paso, Texas, just hours after it abruptly announced that it would close off the skies for “special security reasons”.
This initial, vague explanation prompted still more questions as conflicting narratives surrounding this surprising closure and its abrupt reversal have since emerged.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) posted the “temporary flight restriction” notice on its website late on Tuesday local time, stating that a 10-nautical-mile circle up to 18,000ft around the El Paso international airport in Texas would be off limits for all commercial, cargo and general aviation flights.
“No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered,” the FAA said. It said the closure would remain in place until 20 February, and the notice warned that the government “may use deadly force” against a pilot who did not comply with the instructions.
But by Wednesday morning, and after hours of mayhem in which both airlines, local politicians and tens of thousands of travelers were caught off-guard, the FAA wrote on X that the order had been lifted. “There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal,” it said.
Since then, officials have offered a range of narratives to explain the closure.
The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said on Twitter/X: “The FAA and DOW [“department of war”] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.”
“The threat has been neutralized,” Duffy also said, “and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.’”
The New York Times, citing a source familiar with this shutdown, said the airspace closure was due to testing of anti-drone technology.
Donald Trump signed an executive order in June to develop anti-drone capacity, and said drug cartels were using drones to smuggle fentanyl.
But a Democratic Texas congresswoman for El Paso, Veronica Escobar, took issue with Trump officials’ drone claim, saying it was “not the information that we in Congress have been told”.
“There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly,” the Times quoted Escobar as saying. “The information coming from the administration does not add up.”
Asked about the allegations of cartel drone activity, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said: “There is no information regarding drone use at the border. If the FAA or any other US government agency has any information, they can ask the Mexican government.”
“Let’s not speculate. We will get the information and maintain what we have always maintained: constant communication.”
“Mexico’s airspace wasn’t closed – Texas’s airspace was closed,” Sheinbaum also said. “We’re going to find out exactly why.”
Before the FAA reversed its decision, Escobar had called on the agency to lift what she said was a highly consequential and unprecedented decision that…
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