FAA shutdown of El Paso airspace triggered by dispute over Pentagon laser weapon: Sources
The abrupt closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, was triggered by an interagency clash within the Trump administration on the use of a counterdrone laser system from a nearby Army base along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to several people familiar with the issue.
The surprise shutdown of airspace came days after the laser was used by the Department of Homeland Security to shoot down an object in the vicinity of Fort Bliss, two sources with direct knowledge told ABC News. One of the sources said the object was a balloon.
The Federal Aviation Administration late Tuesday imposed a surprise 10-day shutdown of airspace within a 10-mile radius of El Paso, halting all arrivals and departures at its airport for what it initially described only as "special security reasons." The order offered no explanation, leaving local officials and travelers caught by surprise.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed to allow Customs and Border Patrol to use the laser weapon, an official briefed on the incident told ABC News. The person said the CBP used it this week in the vicinity of Fort Bliss without telling the FAA, prompting the agency to push back with the closed airspace order
It’s unclear what type of balloon was taken down, though one official with direct knowledge noted it wasn’t a weather balloon. It’s also unclear whether the Pentagon was planning to use the laser a second time.
Within hours, the FAA rescinded the order. The Trump administration said the closing of airspace was related to the military neutralizing cartel drones, not a balloon.
The FAA had concerns about the weapon's safety and its effects on civilian aircraft and planned to meet with Pentagon officials on the matter in the coming weeks, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation explained.
The agencies involved declined to publicly comment, but in a statement offered to reporters, a Trump administration official said, "Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace. The Department of War took action to disable the drones. The FAA and DOW have determined there is no threat to commercial travel,” but provided no evidence.
It's unclear if the incident earlier this week with the balloon, or a second incident, triggered the FAA's sudden decision to close airspace. One person told ABC News that the FAA shuttered the airspace as a "precautionary measure" to quantify the risk.
The White House, the FAA and the Department of Transportation did not respond to ABC News' request for comment on the dispute.
Neutralizing drones over U.S. airspace is fraught with risk. Directed-energy weapons such as lasers don’t simply vanish if they miss, the beam keeps traveling, posing a potential hazard to civilian aircraft.
"There’s a lot of fear of collateral damage, risk of blinding pilots, scrambled electronics … there are a lot of high levels of caution,” Molly Campbell, a drone expert with the Center for a New American Security, told ABC News. “There’s a lot to consider in the civilian airspace.”
Even successful hits can create new dangers. Electronic countermeasures often disrupt a drone’s sensors rather than destroy it outright, leaving the aircraft disoriented and potentially careening into other planes or crashing unpredictably to the ground, where falling debris can cause injuries or damage.
“It has to be coordinated across and outside the federal government,” said John Cohen, former acting undersecretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security and an ABC News contributor.
Federal law enforcement agencies and the Pentagon have surged counterdrone capabilities to the region in recent years as cartels increasingly rely on inexpensive commercial systems for surveillance and smuggling.
Roughly 148 drones per day are detected within 500 meters of the southern border, Steven Willoughby, director for the Department of Homeland Security's counter-drone program, told lawmakers during a hearing on the matter last summer.
"Nearly every day, transnational criminal organizations use drones to convey illicit narcotics and contraband across U.S. borders and conduct hostile surveillance of law enforcement," Willoughby said.
El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson blasted the FAA over the nearly eight-hour airspace shutdown, saying the sudden restriction sowed "chaos and confusion" across the city.
At a news conference, Johnson said medical evacuations were diverted to hospitals roughly 40 miles outside El Paso and other emergency aviation assets were grounded during the closure.
"You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating," he said. "That failure to communicate is unacceptable."
