An airport in Texas was closed abruptly on Tuesday night, with passengers told it could shut for 10 days – only for it to reopen on Wednesday morning, with no clear explanation.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights in and out of El Paso International, which is close to the US-Mexico border, from 11.30pm on Tuesday by creating a no-fly zone for 10 nautical miles around the airport.
Initially, the FAA said the closure would remain in place until 20 February and issued a notice to pilots, warning that the US government ‘may use deadly force’ against any flights that did not comply with the no-fly instructions.
However, on Wednesday morning the FAA posted on X that the order had been lifted. It said: “There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal.”
While some officials told media the temporary closure was due to an invasion of US airspace by Mexican drug cartel drones, the New York Times said sources had revealed it was to allow for testing of anti-drone technology, while other reports claim a ‘party balloon’ was mistaken for a drone.
In a post on X, the US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote: “The FAA and DOW [“department of war”] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.
“The threat has been neutralised.”
But a Democratic congresswoman for El Paso, Veronica Escobar, said this was ‘not the information that we in Congress have been told’. She told the Times: “There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly.
“The information coming from the administration does not add up.”
CBS News said its sources had indicated the closure was due to FAA and Pentagon disagreements over ‘drone-related tests’ involving high-energy lasers. The Associated Press also reported that US Customs and Border Protection used an anti-drone laser without first consulting the FAA.
