El Paso airspace closure tied to FAA-Pentagon standoff

What happened

The Federal Aviation Administration’s abrupt hourslong closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday stemmed from a standoff between the Transportation Department, Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security over testing an anti-drone laser weapon, according to news organizations. The FAA late Tuesday grounded all flights in and around El Paso and a nearby stretch of New Mexico for 10 days, citing “special security reasons,” before backtracking Wednesday morning amid an outcry in Washington, D.C., and Texas.

Who said what

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media that the FAA and Pentagon had “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion” and the “threat has been neutralized.” Trump administration officials have been “slinging blame back and forth in private” about the extraordinary airspace closure, Axios said, but their “official statements mirror Duffy’s language around a drone incursion.” Lawmakers and El Paso officials said that explanation made little sense, in part because drone incursions from Mexico are a daily occurrence along the border.

The drone “assertion” was also “undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the FAA’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser” from Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso International Airport, The New York Times said. The FAA and Pentagon had a Feb. 20 meeting scheduled to “discuss the safety implications of deploying” the military’s “high-energy laser,” but Customs and Border Protection officials preemptively “deployed the technology” without giving the FAA “enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft.”

FAA officials are concerned because “high-powered lasers can temporarily blind or distract pilots, leading to eye injuries and potential loss of aircraft control, particularly during takeoffs and landings,” The Wall Street Journal said. In this case, CBP used the laser to “counter what officials believed to be a drone” but “was actually a party balloon.” According to “several sources,” CBS News said, “one balloon was shot down.”

What next?

The incident was “yet another in a line of misfires between the FAA and Defense Department, including last year’s 67-fatality midair crash over the Potomac River,” Politico said. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) said they wanted a classified briefing on the incident from the FAA and Pentagon.

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