The Associated Press is reporting the FAA closed airspace around El Paso, Texas, because the Pentagon allowed Customs and Border Protection to use a laser against a suspected drone at the border without letting the FAA know. Some kind of laser weapon was deployed near Fort Bliss, and the FAA closed the airspace when it found out about it. It’s now being reported the target was a party balloon CBP mistook for a suspicious drone. The original closure was for 10 days, but after what was likely a flurry of interagency communications, the TFR was dropped after only a few hours and flights resumed. There are still plenty of details missing, but there is apparently a meeting scheduled for later this month to determine how the laser weapon and commercial air traffic can coexist over one of busiest transborder corridors in the country.
The brief airspace closure apparently caused some diversions, particularly medevac flights, to Las Cruces Airport about 45 miles away in New Mexico. El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said he received no warning or direct notice of the closure. “I want to be very, very clear that this should’ve never happened,” Johnson said. “You cannot restrict air space over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable.” There were some flight cancellations and delays.
Fox News release…”The breach took place near El Paso International Airport in Texas, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily close the airport late Tuesday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the breach and lifted the airspace restriction on Wednesday.
“The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” Duffy announced in a statement on X, referring to the Department of War. “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
“The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming,” he added.”
18,000 ft TFR with 10 mile radius over El Paso including Ft Bliss and a select area over NM with no advanced notice “suddenly” pops up due to national security risk loosely identified as Mexican drug cartel drones. Duffy does not tell us numbers other than through cooperation between DOW and FAA, the drones were neutralized. No Mexican airspace shut down. Initially, it was a 10 day TFR! All of this gets walked back in a matter of hours with triumphant zeal that the unspecified threat(s) were summarily dispatched with assurances the national population, Ft Bliss, as well as El Paso residents can sleep well knowing the DOW and the FAA are on the job. All of these national security threats combined with triumphal posturing being dispensed at the same time Netanyahu is meeting behind close doors with Peace President Donald J. Trump over decisions about attacking Iran. All of this stinks higher than these 18,000 ft pop up TFR’s. Sleep well, America!
To my fellow pilots, commercial and GA…I hope all of our collective EFB subscriptions are up to date to make sure none of us end up as DOW targets under the new cooperative venture with the FAA.
Whatever the reason, I will go out on a fairly sturdy limb to say that whatever they say was the reason was very much not the reason.
Agree. More on El Paso. ELP matters because it is the Borderplex’s main airline gateway, and the Borderplex is one cross-border metro economy (El Paso, Juárez, and nearby southern New Mexico) that depends on steady movement of people and time-sensitive cargo.
What happened here was not a vague “closure.” The FAA published a Temporary Flight Restriction as an FDC NOTAM for “Special Security Reasons,” 10 NM, surface to 17,999 MSL, with a 10-day effective window.
That reads like “KELP goes unavailable,” which is why the disruption started immediately. Then it got lifted within hours and flights resumed.
The explanation is where it gets messy: the cartel-drone line has not been backed with operational detail in public, while the strongest reporting points to a Fort Bliss counter-UAS test safety and coordination issue as the trigger, with the restriction ending after agreement on additional safety testing.
Whether it was a drone threat or the program meant to stop one, the comms and coordination were not ready for prime time, and the region ate the whiplash.
I posted my comment before the party balloon revalation, so it seems I was correct. This reckless administration did the equivalent of making an emergency ditching because a passenger took their shoes off and exposed their stinky feet. And as someone else pointed out, now any adversary knows they don’t even have to waste money on drones to cause havoc and only need to release a few strategic balloons.
So, it’s a “reckless administration” rather than a rogue FAA official with a hair across his or her arse? Yea, ok. And I’ll hazard a guess that your “balloon” source is some highly acclaimed, venerable “news” outfit, like, say, CBS. LOL.
Ars Technica: “Despite these apparently lingering concerns from the FAA, the military went ahead with a test earlier this week against what was thought to be a drone. The object was a party balloon.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/el-paso-airport-closed-after-military-used-new-anti-drone-laser-to-zap-party-balloon/
New York Times reports that Customs & Border Protection (CBP) deployed a military anti-drone laser to the area, without an FAA safety assessment; the FAA had warned that if they were not given enough time & information to review the equipment, they would have no choice but to shut down the nearby airspace.
CBP thought they were firing on a “cartel drone” which turned out to be a party balloon
I nuked this one because we don’t know the motives and facts behind the deployment and the snark level was too high. Earlier today you wrote a comment on another story that says one of the reasons you like our site is the quality of the comments. I don’t think this one lived up to that standard.
Russ
El Paso felt like a modern rerun of WWII West Coast “coast defense,” except now the searchlights are replaced by press conferences.
We got the full script: unidentified object in the sky, instant assumption of hostile intent, then the heroic narrative. Secretary Duffy tells us it was a cartel drone “incursion,” the threat was “neutralized,” and everyone should relax.
Except FAA shut down a major airport like it was Pearl Harbor. Ten-day window announced, then reversed in hours. That is not a calm, measured response. That is the aviation version of yelling “INCOMING” and diving under the couch.
And if the object was a balloon, it gets even better. Nothing says “secure border” like deploying high-tech counter-drone gear and shutting down commercial aviation over what might have been a party favor drifting toward New Mexico.
Duffy didn’t brief the public, he auditioned for a movie trailer. Meanwhile the airlines, medevacs, and the Borderplex got whiplash.
… and furthermore a whole bunch of people discovered that they can shut down entire swaths of US air space and cause compete chaos with just a few helium balloons.
Hmm it seems like this was very accurately predicted back in 1983 by the West German band Nena in the song “99 Luftballons” …
https://youtu.be/Fpu5a0Bl8eY
“There are still plenty of details missing, but there is apparently a meeting scheduled for later this month to determine how the laser weapon and commercial air traffic can coexist over one of busiest transborder corridors in the country.”
The last thing the American taxpayer needs is a meeting with DOW, FAA, and the CBP decision makers to “determine how the laser weapon and commercial traffic can COEXIST???? over one of busiest trans border corridors in the country”.
So far, Pete, Sean, and Tom’s can’t determine the difference between a GA/Commercial airplane, military aircraft, drone, or party balloon, but have such itchy trigger fingers compelling them to fire laser weapons anyways… at the time of the trigger pull on still unknown airborne objects …taking several hours thru a flurry of communications to go from a 10 day TFR toned down to several hours….and we want these Keystone cops in the same room to see if airborne whatever ( fill in the blanks such as Mexican Cartel Drones, bunches of them) can coexist with laser weapons????…SERIOUSLY????
To me, they cannot be trusted to choose their own socks without adult supervision… let alone deciding who, what, and when can coexist with laser weaponry. And these guys have been handpicked by the President and vetted by Congress, who by their collective fruit thus far, also needs copious amounts of adult supervision!
Balloons causing a military reaction was much more glamorous a scenario in Nena’s 99 Luftballoons. Reality can be disappointing.
Ready, Fire, Aim. Oops. It was supposed to be Ready, Aim, Fire. Would anyone expect anything expect anything more from this Administration. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Hard to comment on this and not be political. But I have to say, get used to incidents like this. We are replacing bureaucrats with political loyalists. The bureaucrats, for all their faults, at least had some expertise and experience. The political appointees do not. I say bring back the “elites” (people with education, experience and subject matter expertise).
Rob I agree with the sentiment in your comment, but the word “elites” makes me flinch. It’s been turned into a pejorative word thanks to propaganda merchants. You have it right, we need the educated, experienced and the subject matter experts, to run the country, I’ll just call them “competent”. It’s a low bar but hasn’t been exceeded much lately.
Hmmm…. What if it HAD been a drone with evil intent and was not fired upon and took town an airliner? Then you could blame the administration for NOT protecting you. Seems to be win, win for those with hair on fire.
I wonder if Sec Noem will have a Balloon Kill sign painted on her Limo.
I believe we have a management problem.