What We Know About the El Paso Airspace Shutdown

The Trump administration blamed the disruptive halt on a cartel drone incursion, but others have disputed that explanation.

The Federal Aviation Administration briefly shut down the airspace over El Paso, Texas, late on Tuesday for 10 days, a sudden decision that surprised local officials, disrupted travelers and alarmed many others.

The restrictions were lifted less than eight hours later but much remains unclear about why officials abruptly shut down a major regional airport for more than a week. Trump administration officials have said Mexican cartel drones had breached U.S. airspace, but others have disputed that explanation.

Here’s what we know:

The order came without warning.

At 11:30 p.m. local time, the F.A.A. halted all flights to and from El Paso International Airport for 10 days for “special security reasons.” The restriction encompassed a 10-mile area around El Paso and included the neighboring community of Santa Teresa, N.M., but did not apply to planes flying above 18,000 feet, the F.A.A. notices said.

The notices did not detail the security reasons that prompted the restriction. But in one notice, the F.A.A. said the federal government “may use deadly force” if an aircraft violating the airspace was determined to pose “an imminent security threat.”

The shutdown caught travelers, local officials, and airlines off guard. El Paso airport said in a statement that the restriction had been issued “on short notice.”

By 7 a.m. on Wednesday, less than eight hours after it issued the notices, the F.A.A. abruptly reversed course, lifting the restrictions at the direction of the White House. “There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the agency said on social media.

The shutdown caused chaos in El Paso.

Renard Johnson, the mayor of El Paso, said at a news conference Wednesday morning that many local officials remained unclear about why the F.A.A. had shut down the airport, and that the “failure to communicate is unacceptable.” He said it had resulted in a series of chaotic events around El Paso, including medical evacuation flights that were forced to divert to Las Cruces, N.M., about 45 miles to the northwest.

“I want to be very, very clear that this should’ve never happened. You cannot restrict air space over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership,” Mayor Johnson said.

Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Republicans of Texas, both said they wanted a classified briefing on the incident from the F.A.A. and the Defense Department.

The F.A.A. generally goes to great lengths to avoid closing airports because unplanned closures, even for a few hours, can severely disrupt air travel.

The Trump administration blamed a drug cartel drone.

Top officials from the Trump administration were quick to claim that the airspace over El Paso was closed after a sudden incursion of Mexican drug cartel drones that required a military response.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media that the F.A.A., an agency within the Transportation Department, and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” and that the threat had been eliminated.

Federal agencies have largely stayed mum on the closure. Bryan Bedford, the F.A.A. administrator, declined to answer questions from reporters after a closed-door briefing with lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman repeated the military’s assertion that it had responded to a drone incursion.

Many officials have pushed back on the drone explanation given by Trump administration officials, asking why an incursion prompted such a sweeping F.A.A. response. “There have been drone incursions from Mexico going back to as long as drones existed,” Representative Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, said at a news conference.

Others say there’s more to the story.

Multiple people briefed on the situation said the abrupt airspace closure was prompted by Customs and Border Protection officials deploying an anti-drone laser in the area without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial planes.

Further, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, the F.A.A.’s move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared with them by the Defense Department without coordination with the aviation agency. The C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it was a party balloon.

The Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The F.A.A. declined to comment.

According to the people briefed on the matter, at the time the F.A.A. closed the airspace, it had not yet completed an assessment of possible risks posed by the new anti-drone technology to other aircraft. Two of the people added that F.A.A. officials had warned the Pentagon that if they were not given enough time and information for their review, they would have no choice but to shut down the airspace near the anti-drone system.

According to four people briefed on the situation, Pentagon and F.A.A. officials were set to meet on Feb. 20 to discuss the safety implications of deploying the military’s new anti-drone technology, which was being tested.

The U.S. military has been developing high-energy laser weapons to intercept and destroy drones. The Trump administration has said Mexican cartels use drones to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.

Reyes Mata III, Eric Schmitt, Kate Kelly and Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.

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