Earlier, I covered how the airspace of El Paso Airport (ELP) was suddenly closed for 10 days, with the explanation being that it’s due to “special security reasons.”
Just closing the airspace around a commercial US airport for 10 days with little advance notice is pretty unprecedented, so understandably, many people wondered what was going on. Well, there’s an update — this flight restriction has already been rescinded, and we have more of a sense of why this might’ve been implemented.
In this post:
El Paso airspace closure blamed on cartel drone incursion
Restrictions on the airspace around El Paso were lifted just hours after the 10-day airport closure was put into place. Officially, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of War (DOW) blame the closure on Mexican cartel drones. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated on social media that this closure was to “address a cartel drone incursion,” and “the threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
El Paso is of course close to the border with Mexico, so many assumed that the closure may have something to do with that detail.
However, there may be a little more nuance to this. The Texas Tribune quotes an industry official who was briefed by the FAA, claiming that the military has been operating drones against drug cartel operations from a base near El Paso, without sharing information about those plans with the FAA. So the idea is that the FAA was unable to predict where the military drones were operating, as they were outside the normal flight paths, and therefore had no choice but to close down the airspace.
I’m happy this was resolved, but what a mess
On the surface, it seems pretty extreme to close airspace for 10 days, and then a few hours later be like “we took care of everything, never mind.”
I suspect one interpretation here could be that the FAA wasn’t happy with the military’s drone activity, and thought it posed a risk to the safety of commercial aircraft, so decided to shut down the airspace. In the aftermath of the 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision, there’s perhaps a bit more sensitivity to the risks, as there should be.
Then perhaps once the airspace was closed down and the Trump administration realized the optics of this and the impact it would have on operations, the military might’ve been forced to modify its approach, to avoid such disruptions.
All that being said, I do wish we were lied to a little bit less. Was the airspace closed because of a cartel drone incursion, or because of military activity using drones against cartels? Either explanation is fine, but those are two very different claims. I guess the end result is the same, but still…
Bottom line
While the airspace around El Paso Airport was supposed to close for 10 days, those flight restrictions have been lifted within hours.
Officially, Trump administration officials are blaming this on Mexican cartel drone activity. However, some briefed by the FAA suggest that this was actually due to military drone operations targeting cartels. Either way, it’s good that this has been resolved, since closing a commercial airport for 10 days is less than ideal.
What do you make of this airspace closure ending abruptly, and the alleged explanation?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-el-paso-flights-airport-lifted_n_698c8dafe4b080ae0a80881f
And now the more likely explanation comes to the surface. It wasn't actually the military testing things or playing with new toys. Hegseth gave an anti-drone system to the idiots in CBP, with predictable results.
Yeah, the extreme reaction (10 days for a few hours) tells us they were some combination of incompetent, testing the outcome, or not telling us the whole truth. For the current regime, I'd wager all 3.
What a mess for anybody based in that area and for airlines that probably started scrambling to figure out what to do with 10 days of scheduling...
Your title is misleading - this wasn't caused by Mexican cartels, it was caused by U.S. military drone testing.
It wasn't caused by military drone testing, it was caused by the most bumblingly incompetent US presidential administration in history, which almost made NENA's "99 Luftballons" come true.
What a parade of clowns these people are.
I don't find Lucky's title to be misleading... The Pu$$ygrabber's administration is clearly trying to obfuscate: "Those drones are there to combat Mexican drug cartels" = "Mexican drug cartel drones" because after all, it's scarier right?
I do take umbrage with Lucky using the non-real title "department of war". If we're making stuff up shall we just call the DOT the "department of whoosh"? And can we call its secretary "that guy whose wife got...
I don't find Lucky's title to be misleading... The Pu$$ygrabber's administration is clearly trying to obfuscate: "Those drones are there to combat Mexican drug cartels" = "Mexican drug cartel drones" because after all, it's scarier right?
I do take umbrage with Lucky using the non-real title "department of war". If we're making stuff up shall we just call the DOT the "department of whoosh"? And can we call its secretary "that guy whose wife got f&($ed by Puck"?
In the end, I guess we should be glad they didn't pull this stunt in San Juan in order to disrupt Bad Bunny's plane ride home. Or in Minneapolis just to add to the damage they've created there.
Wow, you people (and inside that term hesitantly) are so cruel to people you don’t even know. How obscene to talk about someone’s wife in this manner. Such disgusting misogynists.
This administration's incompetence is astounding. Yet it's like par for the course, they'll lie, blame someone else, say they don't know anything about it, blame Biden somehow, and we'll forget about it next week after they do something else embarrassing or terrible.
The last admin let a Chinese spy balloon float across the entire country, but I'm sure you were ok with that right?
@Art Vandy - why are you trying to finding a comparison to a former president? This comment is about the current president.
there's also reporting suggesting that this was about the Pentagon mistaking party balloons for a drone incursion, lasering them out of the sky, and then miscommunicating what it had done to FAA: https://gizmodo.com/one-mexican-cartel-drone-near-el-paso-airspace-actually-party-balloon-report-2000720631
This clown car of a "presidency" cannot come to an end fast enough. They're waaaaaaaaaay too dumb to know that they should be embarrassed, and think that their abject stupidity is normal.
THEY CLOSED AN AIRPORT FOR A PARTY BALLOON THAT THEY BLAMED ON DRUG CARTELS.
Let that sink in, RWNJs.
gets worse, too - looks like at the time, the pentagon had given control of the lasers over to the white nationalist modern-day slave patrol: https://apnews.com/article/faa-el-paso-texas-air-space-closed-1f774bdfd46f5986ff0e7003df709caa
Clown show running this country. Genuinely embarrassing for the US day after day.
Only chumps like Timmy D with his TDS (Trump Devotion Syndrome) still lick his boots.
If you're gonna do a fascism, at least make sure the flights depart on-time!!!
Our President working to clean up Biden and Obama’s messy border situation.
Obama? Dufus was president AFTER Obama. For FOUR years (in case you need a refresher on that too.) I guess we shouldn't let inconvenient facts get in the way of a FOX talking point.
Another day, another example of Hegseth being a national embarrassment. He should have gotten the boot after the Signal fiasco. But of course of course, the Republican way is "accountability for thee but not for me!"
264 days until the midterms. This will not last forever. Accountability is possible, if we want it.
I, for one, want it.
I'm not sure why the airport would have been slated to be closed for ten days but unlike others that will provide an opinion I'm not a security and threat expert. And presumably you would not want Mexican cartel drones in the same air space as commercial aircraft.
I supposed we'd need to trust this administration is telling the truth about these alleged drones. The issue is that they're so quick to overtly lie about things, hard to take them too seriously. Yet, what they do matters and it affects a lot of us, worldwide. So, this all just seemed sloppy at best.
I am a security and threat expert.
The actions taken speak of ineptitude, idiocy, and cover story generation.
If you care for this country, please don’t vote for racism or idiocy going forward.
Political parties need to be abolished in the US. Too many lemmings think a political party is like their football team.
Would you prefer Army helicopters instead?