This one is bad. Not because we know everything. We don’t. We barely know enough.
But we know enough to see a problem.
What is being reported is lawmakers were briefed that a Department of Defense laser counterdrone system reportedly shot down a CBP drone near Fort Hancock, Texas. Then FAA put a TFR about 50 miles south east of El Paso, Texas.
So yes, let’s not dance around it.
One federal agency reportedly shot down another federal agency’s drone.
Then the FAA closes airspace.
That is a mess. However they explain it later, right now it looks ugly.
Details are barely surfacing. Exact laser system, exact drone, exact timing, exact chain of events. Fine. First reports are always incomplete. But this is not one of those stories where you need every nut and bolt before rolling your eyes.
The word is coordination. Or no coordination.
If DoD, DHS, CBP, and FAA are all in the same border airspace picture, then how in the hell do you end up here? Who was tracking what. Who knew the drone was up. Who had the authority. Who was supposed to call who before engaging. Was there a deconfliction process? Was anybody looking at the same picture?
Because it sure does not look like it.
And airspace is not forgiving when agencies get sloppy.
I don’t care what party is blaming what party for a minute. Lawmakers are saying bad training and weak coordination. Maybe yes, maybe partly politics too. But take politics out and the hard question still stays:
How did a federal drone become a target?
Raf, some feeling tells me (in equally non-political perception) that this airspace problem caused by two federal agencies shooting at each other (in our own airspace, over American soil) is rather small, compared to all the other problems we seem to have. The time to hit the freeze button has long passed and some other feeling tells me we’d better buckle up for much crazier stuff coming down the pike.
Agreed. That freeze button got missed a long time ago. Braze for impact!
Raf … did you write this … or AI? It doesn’t sound like you?
Where do I get one of them there lasers … I need one …
It’s me and in a hurry. The story was breaking, a tight deadline. Quick edit pass.
Or it was planned and not communicated. Or it was a mistake.
I’m not clutching my pearls just yet.
No amount of training will overcome failed coordination between agencies. These stovepipes are hard-baked into the system and require better handling at the top. In the end, no training pipeline is going to make Pvt. Snuffy understand the rules of engagement better than they already do. A thorough investigation is necessary, of course.
What would it take to worry you? Have you ever operated a nordo near a border. I have and I bet most on this forum have and I bet none wish to become a target. It’s serious business when clearly confused people are using lethal force in proximity to aircraft which _could_ be occupied by persons such as one of us or our friends or loved ones.
Just an honest mistake is not remotely comforting.
If you got ’em you maybe should clutch them.
Raf,
While I admire your consistent objectivity, unfortunately we cannot back politics out of this. These types of downstream effects always emerge when there is incompetence at the top – all the way up to the very top. In almost every sector of government, department heads were selected without much regard for competence but only for loyalty. Our military leadership was almost immediately hollowed out in 2025. The clown car keeps popping wheelies in DC.
Steve, you are correct. Politics is in this, no way around it.
My point was this: even without the politics piece, one federal agency reportedly knocking down another agency’s drone is already a serious airspace screwup.
Amateurish at best.
I do not want a gross safety failure getting lost in the expected political drama.
Thanks for the push.
Hey you’re right! I bet Trump ordered the firing of the missile that downed our own F-18 a few months back. Definitely something to do with politics. Humans trained to use military weaponry never made mistakes before Trump was in charge! Lol you guys crack me up.
Raf, you probably know this already, but in case others on this forum have not yet heard, please share.
Making us and the general public distrustful, suspicious or fearful of government at any level is not a bug to the supporters of this regime. It’s a feature.
anoldpilot, you are correct.
When government looks this sloppy, public trust takes a hit. In this climate, that is not always treated like damage. Sometimes it is used like a political tool. Further divisiveness.
My lane in this piece was the airspace failure, but your point stands.
Will you guys give this political BS (read TDS) a rest !!! It’s getting mighty tiring! So — what — you think it was OK for the D’s to sit on their hands while a winning hockey team was being celebrated or — more importantly — two heroes were given the Medal of Honor? Or members of Congress are cat calling the President? Or condolences to a murdered LEGAL immigrant were offered? Sickening!
So, if you SO believe what you wrote, tell us all the names of the specific “department heads” who were selected who are SPECIFICALLY at fault here and what did they specifically do that precipitated this event? And “hollowed out” military leadership … OH! … the same leadership that pulled off a midnight attack in Venezuela with only one serious injury.
Give the half of us here who think you’re full of … well … you know what … a break!
A mistake occurred, the root cause will be determined and corrected and that’s the story here. “First reports are always incomplete” IS the correct story here, not Monday morning quarterbacking.
Raf had it correct … “Take the politics out.” This is an AVIATION blog … not Facebook Junior!
“This is an AVIATION blog … not Facebook Junior!”
So very hypocritical from someone who replies to so many articles with some form of pro trump messaging, or accusing others of suffering from TDS. (As you’ve done here, again).
You’ve never seen me INSTIGATE that way of thinking … only to accentuate the folly using the other side of the equation once it’s started. I have scars on my tongue from NOT saying things when I wanted to. But … at some point … enough is enough.
Larry, Larry, Larry you certainly have tds = trump devotion syndrome.
If you support the idiots in charge so much why don’t you fly around the airspace near El Paso every day for a couple of weeks and get back to us in a month.
As you point out, this is an AVIATION blog. So why on earth are you bringing up the State of the Union address? What does that have to do with aviation??
Well Larry, politics and morality cannot be separated when the big picture is at stake. If you see one deer run across the road in front of you, the likelihood is that there are more. No portion of our government exists in a vacuum by itself. We can play mind games and try to silence all of the victims of the last 40 years of mindless political correctness trying to warn us that America is on the wrong track, but that won’t undo the damage or the consequences. America had the finest air traffic system in the world and probably still does. But bad decisions are rarely made by good men. There is a City in New Mexico called “Truth or Consequences” and I suggest that we all consider the implications before far worse things begin to happen.
If TDS keeps me from killing helpless survivors treading water…or for that matter, if it keeps me from pepper-spraying someone, knocking him to the ground, disarming him of his legally-carried weapon, and THEN shooting him ten times in the back…well, sign me up.
“ Give the half of us here who think you’re full of … well … you know what … ”
Larry, it’s much, much fewer than half of us.
Steve, I couldn’t agree more. When we have a talk show host running the DOD (er, excuse me, the Dept. of “War”), a lumberjack competitor/lawyer/talk show host running DOT, and a convicted felon/professional grifter/reality show host running the country, what more could we expect?
I do agree that the current leadership should be held accountable. I highly doubt, however, that you maintained the same level of scrutiny when your team was in charge.
If I want to transit any military airspace (where the shoot-down occurred), I need permission from ATC (who clears it with the airspace owner). It appears, CBP forgot that step. I’ll bet it was part of the training package.
Actually you don’t. Military bases don’t have overflight restriction unless airspace is established, military training routes are plotted for situational awareness, but airspace is not reserved for VR’s, and IR’s are just a unique IFR clearance. MOA is a free for all (recommended/prudent contact, but not req’d), Restricted area is by sked/notam, if not “hot” permission/contact not req’d. TFR’s are per notam, but not all agencies understand that if you don’t tell anyone (no notam) they won’t know to avoid airspace…along lines of VIP TFRs when Secret Service post 9-11 didn’t want to publish because that would reveal VIP location, someone had to explain, how do you expect then to avoid something they don’t know about?
Folks who don’t fly or don’t fly GA don’t always understand that the rest of the world doesn’t know what you’re doing and expect unless you tell them by the established means…NOTAM…and it has to be published more 32 seconds before you go hot. (exaggerating for emphasis).
Not saying it isn’t prudent to check with airspace “owner”, but not doing so is not non-compliant and certainly wouldn’t justify a shoot down, but unfortunately that is not universal knowledge for either side of the equation.
Actually, now that I reread what I wrote and consider your reply – you are correct and I was thinking about all the “R” areas used for ranges, drop zones, etc. I used to ask ATC if the range was hot and if not could I deviate and cut-across rather than following the published victor airway. Is there no longer a minimum altitude over military installations (other than vfr standards)?
If a mil installation doesn’t want overflight they’ll seek airspace restrictions (P, R, TFR, etc), any base CO that concerned won’t sit back and rely on “blanket TFR” concept. Now if you continually hang around and orbit an installation enough that someone in authority takes notice, someone else in a suit may eventually knock on your door asking “can we talk?”. Occasionally the chain of command may not understand valid aviation reasons, but if there aren’t good reasons it may be suggested you go elsewhere…and if that doesn’t work, they’ll probably lobby for airspace or a TFR (funny how the T in TFR seems to have lost its meaning), and that may not make you popular at your homedrome.
UAS operate under different more restrictive rules given 400′ ceiling and likely intent more along the lines of hopping the fence-line for look see as well as potential for sabotage.
Unfortunately for small GA, our profile looks more like a bad actor UAS than the manned aviation they are familiar with (airliners on IFR flight plans and static approach/departures, milair in radio contact)…so the guidance there is to remember that while outreach and education are constructive, righteousness in the moment does not shield from live ordnance.
From charts, it is not clear that there is any such facility located at the place in question. At least, not until the fun started….
umm… better check the regs ZG. It’s legally permissible to transit a MOA without a clearance, or even talking to anyone. Done it many times, but generally I check to see if it’s hot just because I don’t want to be one of those PITA GA pilots whose airplane isn’t worth the extra JET-A a fighter would burn to go around me.
Yep, I should have focused on the “R” airspaces that you can sometimes get approval to transit.
..assuming ATC even knew that DoD was operating there…FAA didn’t close the airspace until afterwards. That’s the issue, it seems nobody is talking to anyone else.
Not at all. Class G. No operational requirements whatsoever in terms of communications or electronic equipment (okay, an ELT). If I were operating an airplane (with humans aboard) with no xpndr there and without any “permission”, clearance or advice, it would be perfectly legal.
In fact, from the chart, it isn’t even clear that there is anyone to request a clearance from at that particular location below 1200 agl and well below any ATC radar.
The charts and regs are easy to find. You might want to take a look.
…and it’s not a stretch for similar buffoonery elsewhere:…”why did you shoot down that Cessna?”…”there was no flight plan, he threatened by approaching our undisclosed position (non-notam’d TFR), he didn’t have ADS-B, he didn’t respond on 243.0, and seemed to be loitering in my area”
Folks who don’t understand each other certainly won’t understand VFR GA.
…and that is the danger. Next time it will be a manned aircraft.
There’s no guarantee it won’t be a military helicopter……..
Mistake happen, even amongst our own agencies and despite which party is in control. Finger pointing serves no purpose, analysis and learning from the mishap is paramount in situations like this. And have no fear, while this circumstance may never occur again, others will. It’s going to a process.
The USA is at war against the USA. I hope we can win.
In other news this morning, the White House announced a highly successful test of it’s beautiful new laser shoot down system. An unmanned drone was totally obliverated in the highly secure airspace somewhere at a military base in the great state of Texas.
Not yet commented upon is what happens to the laser beam before it gets to the target or misses. Besides outright shoot downs, the beam intensity is many thousands to many million times more intense than the little ones presently interfering with aircraft. Instant and permanent blindness for any eyeball encounter even many tens of miles from the source would result. If the shot is taken at low angles, the danger zone would be huge.
Talked to a guy who had been on a night flight when he got hit by a laser. Afterwards, he could only see the brightest objects on the ground, and not his own panel. He adjusted his panel lights all the way up and could barely make them out, but even after 15 minutes, he couldn’t see the runway lights. His panel had synthetic vision, and after a couple of tries, he managed to set down without injury. Took him a week to recover.
This was a civilian laser…a BIG one, but still legal for civilians.
Note that light reflects off surfaces. The light from a really powerful system will bounce around, and there’s no telling who it hits. An airliner at 35,000 feet? A line of cars on the freeway?
Obviously, the FAA needs to issue an immediate order that a civilian aircraft be painted flat black like a WWII night fighter to reduce this hazard.
Reflected beam is likely less of a direct problem because the coin-sized beam would be widely scattered. But hese things work by heating and burning through the target so an impact may appear like a flash bulb. The target’s only (marginal) defense is a mirrored surface. Painting GA planes black would make them more prone to downing. The difference in beam power is hard to fathom. Laser pointers are limited to 5 mW. With conditions, the highest legal power for other uses is 500 mW. Defense systems already in use? 150 kW or about 1,000,000 more powerful. Israel’s “Iron Dome” claims a shoot down range of 10 km. They don’t state a blind-you-forever range, but that could be many times larger. To make these things even more dangerous, many use beams in the infrared. A pilot won’t even see the beam that blinds him forever assuming he doesn’t die from catching on fire.
The laser lab at where I used to work had a sign:
“DO NOT LOOK INTO LASER WITH REMAINING EYE”
🙂
Maybe that’s one reason why God gave us a nose between our eyes to protect the other eye.
But the folks polishing their unpainted RV to a high gloss finish have the right idea, it sounds like. Oh… Not the RV-15 though. And it’s really tough to keep the belly so shiny on a tiny low-wing homebuilt……
Maybe a super shiny Mae West type of device to protect us from such attacks. Could limit visibility, but you have to prioritize nowadays….
On target, Jeff and Ron.
From the human side and the flight safety side, the collateral risk is real. I do not care what legal label they use to justify turning that thing on.
For the good of aviation, if a system can affect eyesight, visibility, or pilot performance in shared airspace, then coordination and containment are not optional.
What I have to wonder about is what they did for target identification. Surely they would have had some silhouettes handy showing domestic drones. Was there *no* ability to visually confirm the target before firing at it? Or is this just a case of, “It wasn’t on a flight plan” or “Wasn’t talking to ATC”?
This last has me worried. I haven’t filed a flight plan for thirty years, and haven’t talked to any ATC facility for 25. 🙂
Finally, a probing question that actually gets to the heart of the situation.
What are the rules of engagement (ROE) for employment of a directed energy weapon? Undoubtedly it’s classified as are most ROE. Target identification can be done by quite a number of different methods. In this case the target was apparently misidentified. We have no way of knowing how or why, and it’s unlikely those questions will be answered outside of a classified briefing.
One of the more dangerous parts of a combat mission was coming back across the the battle line to friendly territory, knowing that the only thing keeping you from being shot at by friendly air defense forces was making sure you were following the ROE the soldier at the trigger was using to properly identify your aircraft as a friendly.
Mistakes happened. They will continue to happen. Such is the case here.
Misidentified, if at all identified.
On the “bright” side, these guys are two for two. One cbp uas and one mylar balloon.
Keep up the good work.
This looks more like a federal coordination mess than a GA VFR problem. Still, it is a real concern, and I would not be comfortable flying the border right now with more uniforms, more weapons, and more chances for bad calls.
Don’t know much, forget more every day… Is this a case of a hammer looking for a nail? Most old, rusty nails won’t drive straight… and all this for a party Pinata balloon?
There are use cases, at least in theory. In practice, operating one of these things within many miles of _any_ actual or potential civil aircraft (or manned non-enemy aircraft of any kind) is a non-starter.
You have to build procedures and systems and regulations and do testing and training airspace design and rulemaking and also have a fricking clue what you’re doing which this crowd obviously does not. It’s a heavy lift and we have lightweights.
Raf,
I think you missed a golden opportunity to praise our FAA, CBP, DOW/DOD, and DHS. In fact, your commentary was off target not the DOW/DOD laser.
You glaringly missed the “improvement” of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) coordination with the FAA, and the lethality of the strike against the clearly identified aerial target as a CBP drone…which I am sure was armed and obviously considered dangerous. The added bonus was how well the laser “breaks things” which is full vindication Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth’s seemingly bombastic claim that under his steely eyed leadership that indeed the DOW ( formerly known as DOD) was now lethal and breaking things.
Raf, look at the vast improvement in combined government performance as compared to a mere 2-3 weeks ago or so, when the FAA shut down the airspace over El Paso initially for 10 days in response to the Mexican Drug Cartel’s aerial invasion of the USA with well over a dozen equally armed and dangerous drug drones. They were clearly confirmed and identified as a threat to national security by our equally ( maybe not equal to F&F Pete’s steely eyed look) steely eyed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Unfortunately, steely eyed Pete, and almost steely eyed Sean had a target identification malfunction ( similar to a well known “wardrobe malfunction”) , using a similar, maybe even the very same laser the DOW previously used in neutralizing (AKA “breaking things” in military terms) an ominous, potentially lethal single party balloon.
At least the DOW did correctly identify the target as a drone ( improvement #1), kept it in the government family by destroying a CBP drone vs destroying a civilian aerial violator ( improvement #2), and coordinated with the FAA to implement another TFR but far more considerate of the public’s time and courtesy to GA pilots preflight prerequisites, as well as reducing potential TFR fatigue by issuing a much abbreviated TFR from 10 days to much more satisfying, mere hours
( improvement #3). So, quit being a sore winner. Our government agencies are actually improving under these increasing border and national sovereignty pressures. USA (foot stomp)! USA( fist pump)! USA(thunderous chant)!
Ha. An E-2 fresh out of boot camp would have done better. The screwup was bad enough. Now comes the spin.
Cautionary true story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Peru_Cessna_185_shootdown
Good one, anoldpilot. That Peru shootdown is exactly the kind of caution flag that fits this story.
Different aircraft, same failure pattern: bad ID, mixed comms, doubt in the chain, and somebody still lights up good guys.
A little off topic, but I’m glad to see you writing articles here, Raf. I always found your comments on this site and AvWeb to be thoughtful, accurate and on point. I look forward to seeing more from you!
You made my day, Joe. I appreciate it. 🙏