FAA halts all flights at El Paso airport for 10 days
nytimes.com244 points by edward 10 hours ago
244 points by edward 10 hours ago
> Airline sources told Reuters the grounding of flights was believed to be tied to the Pentagon's use of counterdrone technology to address Mexican drug cartels' use of drones of the U.S.-Mexico border.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-halts-all-flights-texass...
>. "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.
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."
Doesn't really pass the sniff test. Why would you need a 10 day closure to deal with a drone incursion?
I'm guessing DoD and the FAA were squabbling over a test the military wanted to run, and it didn't go up the chain fast enough to get resolved before testing was scheduled to begin.
Edit: Here's the actual notice from the FAA[1]. Note that it was issued at 0332 UTC, but the restrictions weren't scheduled to go into place until 0630 UTC. Either the FAA is clairvoyant, or Sean Duffy is lying.
Recent updates say this was a unilateral call by FAA because DOD was refusing to coordinate with them for creating safety corridors for DOD drones and/or HEW usage. Issues came to a head after DOD shot down a highly threatening mylar party balloon, which FAA evidently considered to be a somewhat reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.
Can you share a source for this? It's not in the updates to the NYT article.
Charitably guessing that if they don't know how long they'll need to keep airspace closed then you give yourself plenty of time and rescind early if necessary, as opposed to continually issuing extensions which could cause confusion.
Or you say “until further notice”.
Indeterminate end dates are not a new problem.
Was it meant to be "up to 10 days" rather than 10 days? If the drones are no longer flying over the airport it makes sense they'd open it back up.
The closure was for 10 days full stop. I can't think of a reason to do that in response to an active threat.
I think the point was to get headlines and attention, as someone else said it sounds like the FAA is frustrated that the DoD isn't cooperating, and this seems like a possible attempt to make this frustration public to pressure DoD into playing more nicely.
This is OpSec 101. Making the public closure too "tight" around the operational timeline could (negligently) leak operational details. You can always cancel a closure later.
Is saying "indefinitely" or "until further notice" any worse than "10 days?" The specificity of the timeline was what caught my eye.
Ding ding. Always assume weaponized incompetence in this administration:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airspace-closure-followed-spat-...
> FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford on Tuesday night decided to close the airspace — without alerting White House, Pentagon or Homeland Security officials, sources said.
In the meantime, the politician responsible of course made up a quick lie and yall ran with it, fantasizing about cartel MANPADs:
> Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement, "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion."
[flagged]
> yup, it was a lie
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/11/el-paso-air-space-cl...
I'm merely passing on live information to update the conversation. Don't shoot the messenger.
When you have multiple paragraphs in a quotation, each paragraph must start with a quote. Only the last paragraph in the quotation ends with a quote. Just pick up any book with dialogue in it and see for yourself. This is why I think your comment came across as you personally endorsing the official statement; it's not clear at first glance where the quote ends. The correct/incorrect placing of quotes is the kind of subtle thing that would lead someone to interpret one thing or the other without actually realizing what just happened.
Which writing style standard does that correspond to?
This is an internet discussion board with people from diverse backgrounds. Informal quotation style is common. Your comment is the first time I’ve seen someone assert that new paragraphs should start with a quote.
It's common practice when dealing with sites and clients that don't have fancy quoting features, going all the way back to USENET forums and probably before. It avoids just this ambiguity when you might be mixing quote and commentary.
Hmm, honestly I’ve mostly seen > used for quotations in plain-text-y environments. Not sure about USENET, but ever since email it seems to be the de-facto standard everywhere. (On HN, I mostly see >, italics, or monospace as the quotation indicators.)
Not sure which particular standard it is but it is a thing. Agreed that it’s nitpicking though, it’s pretty easy to understand the boundaries of the quotation either way.
And I was merely commenting on the likely veracity of the quote you posted. No shooting happening here.
HackerNews will be shut down for 10 days as we deploy counter-messenger technology.
Thats true - and I noticed that (but I wanted clarity from shots fired). Though the other follow on comments are interesting - say I may or may not endorse by how I wrote it, that my grammar/punctuation (it was just a fast cut copy) makes it look like i'm endorsing.
My comment is a non statement but people are clearly riled up these days.
It seems like the messenger might endorse the message though, and is attempting to be coy.
Folks should be careful of people using the "messenger" title to attempt to obtain the appearance of impartiality.
Looks like they shot the drone down with a laser:
> UPDATE (CNN): Source briefed by FAA tells me that military activity behind the El Paso flight ban included unmanned aircraft operations and laser countermeasure testing in airspace directly adjacent to civilian routes into El Paso International. Airspace restriction just lifted.
Good thing they allocated 10 days of airspace shutdown for taking out a single drone.
I get the feeling this was a case of really wanting to test a new weapon combined with general organizational dysfunction for something unusual like this.
On CNN, they talked about how a shutdown like this would be the first time something like this has happened since 9/11. Is that really correct?
How do we know it was a "single" drone, or that they knew for sure that it was?
I personally don't think that's the whole story. They're likely going to act against the cartels to take out cross-border drone capabilities and are preparing for S-A retaliation as well.
A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them just like 9/11 or the Iran hostage crisis. The US has been trying to extent the "foreign terrorist" label and casus belli to drug activities forever to justify military operations (ex. the "arrest" of Maduro was for drugs, not oil/Cuba/political stuff). That would be a massive self-own on the cartels part. (And if it did happen, just like 9/11, it would be used as justification for anything even remotely immigration or drug related at every level.)
My understanding over the US/MX cartel relations is performing an invasion and “act of war” would solidify asylum status claims by Mexican residents and throw a wrench into the whole immigration scheme every administration plays.
But then again this time seems different, laws aren’t followed or upheld. Human rights are a fleeting staple.
Starting a war with Mexico would be a pretext for interning everyone of "Mexican" ethnicity, citizen or otherwise, as was done to Japanese nationals.
Its mincing words a bit, but an attack targeting drug cartel assets wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a war with Mexico. It could lead to that for sure, and the Mexican government could declare it an act of war, but we did just see the US literally invade a foreign country and arrest their sitting leader without war being declared on either side.
> A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them
In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.
It is, of course. What they mean, I assume, is that it would reach a tipping point where intervention would be more broadly supported. Virtually everyone is willing to say "that's bad" with regards to something happening somewhere, it is far less agreed upon that the US should intervene in that bad thing. An effective tipping point is probably something on the order of "we feel attacked".
Much of the world was against Saddam Hussein, but it took the wholesale invention of an Iraqi nuclear program to justify and get authorization for deposing him through international military action. Iraq didn't attack us, though in attacking an oil partner they might as well have, but the public certainly didn't feel attacked until someone dreamed up the prospect of Iraq nuking Israel, Europe, and/or us.
In that case, the justification was a prerequisite to Congress authorizing a war without losing elections, and then selling it to the US's allies so we wouldn't have to send quite as many troops and thus lose elections. This administration demonstrably doesn't care about justification, authorization, alliances, or elections. So why bother? If they're going to stage an arbitrary Venezuela-like military operation in Mexico because of "cartels", they wouldn't wait for a civilian mass-death event, or for Congress, or regional allies, or public opinion. They didn't wait for any of that in Venezuela.
TBQH this just felt like a cheap and easy way for them to perpetuate the idea that we're always at war with terrorists. Now they're "narcoterrorists", but they're still "terrorists". And this administration might not like obstacles like authorization and due process, but it loves cheap, easy terrorists.
There were plenty of people that were not against Pablo Escobar as he spent a lot of money back in his home town. Once the violence escalated, like when they took down a civilian flight, even that support waned. So I can see where GP is saying similar that by the time cartels get to the point of shooting down civilian aircraft even those that did support them would consider that the final straw.
The world where Americans buy billions in illegal drugs every year and turn a blind eye to cartels. "My dealer is nice"
> In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.
I think you’re getting tripped up by some specific wording and managing to miss the point the poster was making. The point should be taken seriously even if imprecisely articulated. While most folks are against the cartels, there’s a much wider range of belief on how much they warrant government or military intervention and to what degree we should be spending various resources on them. The historical state of play was(is?) that cartels are criminal organizations which are generally a policing matter that has escalated to specialized policing agencies and multinational networks of policing agencies. The marked escalation of the military into this is a more recent piece that is somewhat more controversial. One doesn’t have to be “in favor of the cartel” to ask questions about whether our military should be bombing boats or invading countries to ostensibly neutralize organizations that historically have been subject to policing operations.
To go back to the parallel… the public wasn’t in favor of Al Qaeda before 9/11 either, but there was a huge difference in the level of response the public was in favor of after. It turned from an intelligence monitoring level of response into an active military invasion of multiple countries.
The best part about bombing the boats is that the second strikes on them were war crimes, while the few survivors that were picked up... All ended up repatriated.
If they were all drug runners, why weren't they put on trial? Why was so much effort made to sink all the evidence? Why did an admiral resign, when told to do this?
Everybody involved, starting from the people pulling the trigger, to the people giving the orders should be getting a fair trial and a swift punishment for that little stint of piracy and murder.
But these people all act like there is no such thing as consequences.
What does that even mean? Cartels can buy those DJI drones from China by the container load.
Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon?
> Does the US have a secret weapon?
It sounds like that's what was being tested requiring the NOTAM. We just don't know if it did or didn't work. It could have failed so badly they decided to just shut it down, or it could have worked so successfully they decided no more testing was needed.
> Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon?
That does actually seem to be what they are saying now, yes.
This admin is focused on the message of stopping the inflow of drugs to the US. There are probably some true believers, and there are probably some reactionary accelerationists. There’s also significant evidence of amateurism, misinformation, and incompetence.
All of that coming together, I see this action coming out of meeting where
- one party was convinced that this would solve the fentanyl epidemic
- one party was hoping this would escalate military action in Mexico
- one party was convinced that America had lost its masculine bravado and taking swift and unprecedented action like this would make their wife respect them again
- one party was busy making “bets” on Kalshi> one party was busy making “bets” on Kalshi
This would arguably be much more severe -- and quite likely already happening -- than the whole "congress trading stocks" thing because most of those (besides the sports ones) tie very directly to government actions in a way that the economy or a large company in generally doesn't as predictably.
It's definitely already happening and should lead to a congressional inquiry if we had a functioning congress: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2gn93292do
Isn't the whole idea of prediction markets to let insiders bet on things so that you'll get insider info leaked?
> reactionary
they want to overthrow the Jacobites
> accelerationists
how's that going to work ?
Reactionary accelerationists want a local war of some sort so they can grab war powers and then roll back all the US's post-WW2 social progress (and most of the New Deal too).
My understanding is accelerationists or liberals to go full hog so that they can go "see".
If the US wanted to end the fentanyl and xylazine and nitazene epidemic, it would legalize the controlled manufacture, sale, and usage of the drugs being adulterated. This won't happen, because the 50-year-old War on Drugs is a load-bearing pillar of the US government.
I live in Seattle, decriminalizing drugs didn't turn out that way here.
"controlled" is key. Seattle decriminalized drug use. That's a tiny part of a larger solution rooted in harm reduction.
Singapore kills drug dealers. That works much better.
Idk, if the number of people executed increases over time, maybe it doesn't.
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/singapore-executions-touch-22...
This article cites Singapore saying the existing laws mostly get low-level users and not kingpins because kingpins operate outside of the country.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/singapore-drug-executions/
Decriminalization of drug use doesn't have to mean decriminalization of anything else. Thieves and murderers should be prosecuted regardless of any state induced by the voluntary ingestion chemicals.
Xylazine and fentanyl are already legally distributed in the US. I believe Xylazine is still unscheduled.
https://www.dechra-us.com/our-products/us/equine/horse/presc...
Those are the adulterants, not the drugs being adulterated such as heroin, meth, and MDMA.
For the most part, no customer wants fentanyl. The dealers like it because it's a cheap booster for cutting the drugs that their customers actually do want to buy. It just has this unfortunate side effect of making small overdoses lethal.
That's why "ending the fentanyl crisis" is a curious goal. We had a perfectly good War on Drugs going on, but fentanyl is making the illicit drug industry too dangerous. You'd think that if we wanted to stop drugs, and we knew how to do that, we'd stop drugs. Instead we're stopping fentanyl, so we can get back to the regularly scheduled version of the War on Drugs that was always intended to last forever.
It's like if Canada wanted to end gun smuggling and school shootings, it would legalize the controlled manufacture, sale, and usage of the guns being banned. But they won't.
"FAA abruptly lifts order halting El Paso airport flights for 10 days" - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/faa-el-paso-airport.html
don't attribute to security concerns...what can be explained by incompetence...
As someone else mentioned, there’s some speculation in aviation subreddits that the bounds of the altitude restriction map to the MANPAD capabilities that some cartels are purported to have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1s4zt/comment/o...
My read is that the admin is planning forceful strikes on the cartels within Mexico and is worried about their ability to retaliate by taking down US aircraft across the border.
Edit: The closure has now been kiboshed. The wording seems a little “don’t panic-y” to me, but better that than the alternative! https://x.com/FAANews/status/2021583720465969421
Knowing the restriction goes to 18k certainly says that either S-A or A-S reach must be limited but the as your post points out no buffer between MANPAD actual range and the limit imposed. I think unlikely to say MANPAD, specifically.
There's a small private airfield to the west with only a single victor airway connecting to el-paso. the victors end at 17999 ft, effectively cutting traffic for non-commercial or non-business jet operators.
Closure of the victor airway there seems, again limiting airborne craft due to airborne hazards.
Hazards in the air, near the surface that are, seemingly, unplanned with a cone pointing at mexico.
That's kind of the most anyone will get until more info, could be some urgent testing of some capability or response to small craft (drones) coming over the boarder. Emergency timing could be to garner interest or emphasize importance, which works well politically.
Las Cruces International Airport and Dana Jetport are unaffected.
The restriction goes to 18k because that's the top of VFR space. Anyone operating above 18k has to be on an IFR clearance and under positive ATC control. That makes it easy for the feds to make a call and say "Hey, center, get everyone out of this airspace" wheras in the VFR altitudes it's very difficult for them to legally clear the space since a VFR plane could be flying around not talking to anyone.
I only know about Las Cruces from the Organ Mountain Outfitters training material in the DaVinci Resolve sample footage. Sadly they closed a few months ago, which is a shame because I never got my arse in gear to order a shirt from them.
Even Cartels know that shooting down civilian aircraft in US airspace would be an escalation that would lead to heavy retaliation. Doesn't seem likely to me.
Coming from groups that just pickup busses of people to murder, I wouldn’t be so sure that firing back at the US would be out of the question.
Murdering buses of people doesn't bring the full force of the US military on them. The difference is the risk not the depravity.
This is the answer. The cartels would have to be insane to poke that particular bear. They would get crushed like a bug. IIRC they murdered a single US undercover officer in the 90s and the retaliation was so bad that they themselves handed over the perpetrators.
> They would get crushed like a bug.
Much as I despise them, I'm not so sure that would be the case. I seem to remember folks saying the same about the Taliban, and the cartels have a lot more money and high-tech kit, than the Taliban.
Asymmetric warfare is a tough gig, on all sides.
I don’t think the technology matters nearly as much as the asymmetry. Iraq had better technology than the Taliban and their military didn’t last a week.
True enough, but the cartels are also experts at running what is basically guerrilla warfare, against each other. Not sure if the Mexican Army has ever tried to take them on. A lot of cartel soldiers come from the army.
You are right rationality is their strongest character trait.
How are they not rational? Violence is a tool. They operate an illegal business so they can’t sue other parties for breach of contract. They can't call the police if they are robbed or file an insurance claim for what was taken. Even the over-the-top violence has a rationale. They aren't punishing the victims as much as they are attempting to broadcast that there is a higher price to be paid than any gain from giving information, to reduce their future losses and enforcement efforts. It isn’t moral or ethical, but I wouldn’t say it is irrational.
Lots of organized crime around the world manages to operate without cutting all the limbs off somebody then arranging them like flowers in a "vase" made out of the poor soul's ribcage. The cartels take violence far beyond what is pragmatically necessary. Their system of crime breeds excessive violence and insanity.
This stuff mostly followed after the zetas. It was a very deliberate strategy to compete in a hostile landscape that others eventually copied to survive.
The cartels are incredibly rational - what they lack are morals and ethics
I would recommend reading the Freakinomics book or listen to their podcasts on drugs.
TL;DR: drug cartels are run like businesses. They are very rational. But, unlike your boss, their boss can also shoot you in the face if you annoy them too much
How did that full force of the US military work out in Vietnam?
Millions of dead Vietnamese.
In any case that was a war against a hardened, experienced, determined enemy fighting for its freedom from any form of colonial occupation, both as a formal military and as an insurgent force in South Vietnam.
I scarcely think the Mexican population would rise up in defense of the cartels here.
I think a lot of people would be cheering on the destruction of the cartels.
They'd probably quickly stop cheering as their own homes and families were destroyed as collateral damage, which is what would happen if the "full force of the US military" were deployed against the cartels.
The last time America invaded Mexico City it created martyrs. It's a fascinating story that they do not teach at US highschools lol.
The destruction of cartels would involve careful policing and corruption controls, the best American administrations have been bad at this. The worst... can barely put its pants on much less dismantle foreign organized crime. You can't shoot a missile at a cartel and poof it's just gone.
A non-aligned population will look out for their own interests and are aware that the attention of the US is temporary but the cuadillismo that lead to cartels are a durable cultural artifact.
The Battle of Culiacán, also known locally as the Culiacanazo and Black
Thursday, was a failed attempt to capture Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa
Cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who was wanted in the United States
for drug trafficking.
Around 700 cartel gunmen began to attack civilian, government and military
targets around the city, despite orders from Ovidio sent at security forces'
request. Massive towers of smoke could be seen rising from burning cars and
vehicles. The cartels were well-equipped, with improvised armored vehicles,
bulletproof vests, .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifles, rocket launchers, grenade
launchers and heavy machine guns.
I don't really think you thought through that one. It sounds like what your saying is that the Vietnamese won and thats the outcome that matters. It does matter but that isn't the issue - it is the cost that everyone is talking about: the amount of destruction that was brought upon the country and people was terrible.
The distinction is those are cases where they are murdering Mexican citizens. If a cartel murdered a bus of people in America I suspect most any administration would retaliate in some form.
Dude, Americans are getting kidnapped and murdered in Mexico all the time. The cartels don’t care your nationality.
If the administration strikes cartels first, they may find it egregious enough to do what they refused to do in the past…
I don’t rule out any options when it comes to murderous organizations.
*EDIT* This isn’t me saying don’t go to Mexico or that Mexico is unsafe either. Out of the tourists that visit from America, 0.001% see violence or are kidnapped or anything negative. If anything it would be petty theft near cruise ports and resort towns that would be the biggest culprit of crime for Americans.
“Dude”, murdering a us citizen in Mexico is different than murdering an entire bus of people on US soil.
You say it’s happening all the time but then say it’s .01%.
Looked it up myself, maybe 40 to 300 people annually. Hard to discern how many of those are pure tourism vs visiting family. I suspect you have a greater risk visiting family, especially if it’s a border town.
13.5mm US citizens visit d Mexico in 2024 so .00002% got kidnapped. I bet that number is even lower when you separate pure tourism vs dual nationals or similar going back home to visit.
The point is any action taken on US soil in a large capacity would be seen as an attack by any administration.
Of course things happen sometimes. But, the cartels typically do not want to mess with Americans, particularly in tourist areas, because that brings heat they don't want. It's literally bad for business.
I think the GP was referring to buses on US soil rather than Americans on buses in Mexico.
Cartels only strike their own on US soil…
You’re missing the point. Absolutely cartel violence impacts all types of people in the US and Mexico but large scale brutal violence that is usually saved for Mexico since unfortunately the Mexican federal government does not have control in most of the regions.
There is a huge difference between a one off gang killing in the US and someone taking a whole grey hound bus and burying the bodies in the desert.
Which is why I bring up their affinity for going after busses of people, because they have, in Mexico…
The world does not stop at the Us border.
> Dude, Americans are getting kidnapped and murdered in Mexico all the time
Dude, can you put some numbers with a citation behind that? Then we can extrapolate a risk ratio and see if it really merits the "all the time" claim.
who are we (the US)? People who wantonly murder people on fishing boats, etc.
I’m not saying our cartel is any better…
Your use of "our" makes me wonder if the people of Mexico see the drug cartels as "theirs".
Merely pointing out that the US administration is operating like a cartel now a days.
I doubt Mexicans see the Mexican cartels as “theirs” in the same way. Cartels have only been interested in paying off politicians and (as far as I’m aware) weren’t interested in being politicians. However, our politicians here… would LOVE to be Cartel members and make millions it seems. Because they definitely don’t give a shit about law and order.
This is different.
See, Drug cartels over here operate with the blessing and favor of our president. They are tightly connected.
If a cartel dared to ground a US flight. The US government would have a "free pass" to break all hell loose in Mexico, and Sheinbaum wouldn't have a way to stop it.
She doesn't want that in any way, so the message to the cartel bosses would be to be very careful in that respect.
Sure, there have been US citizens killed within Mexico here and there, but those can easily be attributed to local violence. And as retribution, Mexican government sends a couple of wanted criminals to the US.
Yeah, if a cartel actually used anti-aircraft weapons on a US passenger plane in US airspace? It wouldn't even matter if MAGA or the Democrats were in charge. The US would collectively lose its shit and spend the next 10 years and several trillion dollars retaliating against the cartels. The media would be ecstatic, because it would give them a decade of story arcs, starting with "our brave troops in uniform" all the way through to covering the eventual quagmire and anti-war protests. By year 6-8, editorial columnists would be writing columns reconsidering their initial support for the war.
Please, let's not do this.
Good point. I guess it depends on the force, size, and especially effectiveness of any potential strikes. (i.e. How cornered a cartel might feel and how much flexing an outsized response might stand to gain them.)
Yes that might be the high-level logic, but if you give a MANPAD to a 19 year old sicario on meth, accidents do happen.
If that aircraft held a person they wanted dead, I would not put it past them.
Unless we start bombing them first. That’s not hard to imagine these days.
Not hard to imagine these days? Wouldn't you hope for an intervention if it were known that a hostile, state-level military planned to down civilian aircraft?
What happened after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 ?
I had a quick check, and there were zero Americans on board this Malaysian aircraft shot down by a nuclear power over Ukraine, so I don't know how you think it's relevant to an American aircraft full of Americans being shot down in American airspace by cartels immediately on the other side of the American border.
EDIT: Unless you think Malaysia not bombing the Kremlin in retribution is somehow indicative of how America would respond to the situation we're actually talking about.
Unless the government is planning an attack on the cartel[s] that is so existential that such action wouldn't be considered an escalation but rather a tic for tat.
A trapped animal will generally use all its facilities regardless of its expected effectiveness.
Remember that there is no "the" cartel, just so many different towns and interests and bribed officials. It makes it a significant (and perhaps convenient) misnomer dont get me wrong, but maybe important to remember.
Extremely good, highly researched book if you want to get angry at me or call me idiot!
My read is most likely some kind of strike on the cartels. There hasn’t seemed to be any significant US military buildup so it’s something they’ll be able to do with a smaller force.
The trapezoid makes me worried about a ground incision there- it extends to the border and would be a cover space for an invasion force. Absolutely bonkers that we are even having this discussion.
The TFR is most likely contingency planning for possible retaliation by cartel drones and the need to keep the airspace clear so they can see (with radar) and shoot down drones and not passenger aircraft.
You are the first person to mention invasion. Kind of bonkers to jump to that conclusion.
It is totally nuts. We will see I guess. If there will be a ground invasion, people will see the convoys moving into position. You can’t really hide that much stuff.
Nuts, definitely. Bonkers to jump to that conclusion? No, especially with this US administration. Mexico itself is concerned enough about the possibility that it's made statements to make it clear it wouldn't be acceptable. Mexico thinks it's nuts, too, but not bonkers to think the US might do it.
US troops in Mexico 'not on the table', Sheinbaum tells Trump https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20260112-us-troops-mexi...
She's on the Cartel payroll. Of course she would say that. You can't be a simple mayor without cartel involvement in Mexico.
> She's on the Cartel payroll
> You can't be a simple mayor without cartel involvement in Mexico.
I don't know what world you're living in, but this is absolutely not the case. Mexico is not a failed state, don't get all your news from places trying to scare you.
Other commenters here in this thread as well as many people on reddit and other sites about this news are also saying the same thing. Our minds are not as unique as we think :)
What’s also bonkers is our political whimpiness that allowed this to happen, right? If there is a drone response it’s pretty damning evidence that we are way too dovish in our policy against drug smuggling up until now
It doesn't say much either way.
I'm from the UK, we had the ("real") IRA put a RPG-22 anti-tank rocket at the walls of MI6 HQ (the UK version of the CIA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_MI6_attack
Dangerous things like these are not expensive, compared to even low budget small-time group.
I mean the RIRA is a splinter group of the PIRA which had massive funding from overseas, especially from the United States. PIRA was not a small-time group.
Doing a closure up to 18k feet is common because that's where class A airspace starts, i.e. you need a clearance to go there, you can't just fly around VFR wherever you want. The airspace above 18k might not be officially closed, but controllers can be instructed to just not give a clearance into whatever area they deem is unsafe on a particular day.
"Maybe, or maybe FL180 is a nice clean line for class A airspace. No need to bother transcontinental flights for a local issue."
Way more plauible
FL180 is the floor of Class A airspace, "the flight levels", where airliners etc. operate.
Relevant chapter from FAA "Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge": https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/17_phak_ch15.pdf
In the "Flight Levels", altitudes are referred to not in feet above sea level but as "FLxxx" where xxx is a nominal altitude in 100s of feet.
Altimetry is done using barometric pressure. Since this varies with weather, airplanes at lower altitudes set their altimeters to the local barometric pressure for a reasonably accurate reading. In the flight levels, where planes are typically covering ground quickly and there is very little chance of your path conflicting with the surface of the Earth, every plane sets to an agreed-upon reference of 29.92 inches of mercury as the altimeter setting.
What does that mean sorry?
It means any aircraft transitioning over the area at high altitude isn't impacted, because they're too high to care.
It is a ground and "everything near the ground" stop. Meaning low altitude helicopters and private aircraft have to consider it, even transitioning, but realistically commercial aircraft not taking off/landing in the area won't.
FL180 is 18000 feet, meaning that flights OVER don’t need to divert.
It is a pedantic but meaningful distinction that I'd only point out on a sorta geeky site like this, but actually, FL180 (or, flight level one-eight-zero) is the altitude at which an altimeter will read 18,000 feet if it's set to assume that the barometric pressure is 1013 hPa (29.92 inHg). Above a certain transition altitude, aircraft switch their altimeters from reading altitude in the local pressure to this "standard" pressure. This is because above that altitude and safely away from terrain, it's no longer important to know precisely how high you are, but it _is_ important to know what altitude you are relative to all the other aircraft nearby.
It means that you have no business being below FL180 or 18,000ft to enter this airspace.
I think it's simpler. It's going to make the cartel drones easier to spot.
Do you think the cartels won’t see this news? If this is all it was, the cartels can just wait 10 days and start up again.
Shooting down civilian American aircraft like that would seem to just be for an even more strong response…
Seems unlikely.
If only this was a certainty - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down with 298 people killed 12 years ago but still no one was directly punished for it...
Malaysia isn't going to attack Russia.
I highly doubt the Russians/separatists running the Buk knew the identity of the flight before shooting it down.
Most certainly not, but I don't see how that is relevant.
The problem (from a victim/Dutch perspective) is that there is complete denial from the Russian side (despite heaps of evidence around the people involved, origin and transport of the launcher from Russian territory).
Even if Russian judges and prosecutors are completely corrupt and biased, an actual investigation/trial is the least that would be expected here, but all we got are the bald faced lies that Russia is particularly fond of.
> Shooting down civilian *American* aircraft like that would seem to just be for an even more strong response…
They would want to avoid escalation. Escalation with cartels historically does not go well for anyone involved.
Escalation by attacking US civilians or the homeland has also gone poorly. It’s been the casus belli many times, notably ending in two Japanese cities getting nuked…
The homeland? Yikes.
The last time there was an attack within the United States’ borders it notably ended with a self-owning combination of perhaps the largest bureaucratic waste of time and money in human history (DHS/TSA) and the systematic erosion of enumerated rights.
Dropping nuclear bombs on Japan was in an entirely different context which has no relevance here. We're not in the middle of a global war (nor is anyone even at war with Mexico), nor in a nuclear arms race asserting nuclear capabilities for the first time in history.
You're forgetting all the times the US failed too, and those cases weren't even on its own border. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam... the list is very long. Creating an existential threat on your own border is a bad move for anyone. Remember how bad Columbia got? I guess not. The current situation has the potential to be much more dangerous.
> You're forgetting all the times the US failed too, and those cases weren't even on its own border.
Doesn't the US have more resources at home, not less?
Wouldn't a strike on US soil be a larger escalation and dictate a swift and larger response?
This is real life. They don't to cause a problem they can't solve.
You are now leaning your premise as an argument. I disagree that it would cause a problem.
I believe it's unrealistic that "the cartel" would strike back against the USG, particularly on US soil.
Would that account for the trapezoidal shape of the one restricted area?
My bet is a showy armored advance though the open terrain near there… it’ll look great on camera! /s
Sounds like a great way to reinforce the "We ready to move along from Epstein" narrative.
It seems crazy not to just, tell people that if that's what it is. "Hey if you are flying above 18,000 please don't go lower because you could be blown up by a MANPAD."
If the cartels have MANPADS then our intel is already blown by issuing the TFR, so what's the harm in just saying it out loud?
Mass panic? Think of how wildly it would be misrepresented in the media and how disruptive it would be to all air travel in the country. People aren't rational actors and the most sensationalized headline is what ends up spreading
For your first point, on the off chance they have other equipment capable of surpassing MANPADS I’d prefer as a passenger they just fly around.
Second point, it’s not obvious if its for MANPAD reasons or it’s our own operation though we can speculate.
I'm not sure if the person I replied to edited their comment, or I looked at the wrong one, but the one I originally read said the TFR only had the restriction below 18,000 ft. I was addressing it on that basis, which wasn't requiring people flying above that to route around it.
Of course, the US elected the only celebrity of the 80s and 90s who hates blow.
On the other hand a careful analysis of the plumbing system of Trump's Tower and Trump's Hotels in general would reveal possibly the highest concentration of coke than any other building in the world considering the intersection of wealth and istrionic personalities who called those apartments home at one time or the other.
Fate sure loves irony
Besides I would go to my grave claiming that racism is particularly strong in the war on drugs, if coca grew plentiful and naturally in the US and Europe it would not be illegal at all.
But it's scary because uh ohh inssulfation of an extract of a plant coming from the global south we are all gonna die, somebody will please think of the children.
But hey you can gulp 60 oz of super strong energy drinks which equate to about 5-6 fat lines, matter of fact you can gulp 600 oz and cause yourself a heart attack and nobody would bat an eye or investigate the safety profile of such drinks
It's the same old story with alcohol too
> But hey you can gulp 60 oz of super strong energy drinks which equate to about 5-6 fat lines
Are you joking?
Look, I’m no stranger to drugs, but coke is not a “60oz energy drink” and its potential for generally destroying someone’s life is, while not at the same level, definitely in the same ballpark as crack, heroin, and meth.
60 oz energy drink = 5-6 fat lines perhaps more
The most dense energy drinks have 350-400 of caffeine in a can these days and on top of that there's the taurine etc.
60 oz is 4 cans, do your math. 4 * 400 = 1600mg of caffeine alone
> > potential for generally destroying someone’s life is, while not at the same level, definitely in the same ballpark as crack, heroin, and meth.
That's more of the result of the enviornment and the associated people who frequent such circles and not the stimulant per se.
I don't say this lightly, as someone who has spent decades around drugs, and as a result, knows more than a few recovering addicts: this comes across as wild rationalization by an addict.
And while 1600mg of caffeine is 4x the FDA's recommended daily intake and really isn't a good idea, someone on that much caffeine is neither going to feel nor behave in any way similar to someone on coke.
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“Terrorists” would tend to not consider themselves such.
I doubt the same is true of cartels and their members.
I'm pretty sure no one else reading the comment has any trouble understanding what is meant when talking about cartels in Mexico. What exactly is ambiguous to you?
A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade.[1] Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the illegal drug trade and maintaining prices at a high level. The formations of drug cartels are common in Latin American countries. Rivalries between multiple drug cartels cause them to wage turf wars against each other. Drug cartels often transport both drugs and narcotics, and most often the term "Narcotics cartel" is not used to describe an organization that transports the latter legally defined set of illegal substances, such as marijuana.
There is a circular restriction around the airport and a trapezoid one next to the city (https://elpasomatters.org/2026/02/11/unexplained-faa-order-s...).
What are the plausible explanations here? I can't think of anything except military action against Mexico (or the cartels inside Mexico). But even that doesn't fit well.
A suspected terror attack could explain the airspace around the airport, but not the weird trapezoid restriction next to the city.
The duration of 10 days is also weird, that seems very long for any kind of emergency situation. And as far as I understand, it is unusual to have no exceptions at all here e.g. for medical transports via helicopter.
The not-totally-crazy ideas from Reddit include:
- it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)
- someone in Mexico is getting kidnapped by Gov
- nuclear tests
I wish those were crazy ideas, but here we are...
I don't know which Reddit thread you're reading (there are many I'm sure) but the one in r/Aviation seems to have a favourite theory that there was a credible threat of someone with MANPADS, which are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles and not some sort of sanitary product.
Apparently they have a ceiling of 18,000ft which is exactly the limit of the restriction in El Paso. Aircraft are allowed fly over if they go above that
That's also just the cutoff for class A airspace. I think people are reading too much into the specific height.
> - it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)
Those are done regularly without TFRs. See recent example in Texas:
* https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...
A link to a list of notices at:
> GPS disruption
Ah, a very plausible explanation!
https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...
The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Isn't it possible that a 10-day TFR could be lifted early once the concern is past? They've probably made it 10 days just to establish an upper bound.
If it's just routine testing, then why couldn't they have announced it earlier to allow companies to plan and/or fly their planes out of the affected area?
> > The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Wait so people in South Texas won't be able to use GPS on the ground either?
Also if the goal is to disrupt the cartels and the people using GPS to know where they are at in the process of crossing the border illegally why is the Army involved in this at all?
The Army has no business in taking part of operations to disrupt cartels and illegal immigration, it's the whole rational behind having 3 letters agency including the evil one that rose to prominence lately
The Global Positioning System is owned and operated by Space Delta 8 at Schriever Space Force Base in CO[1]. Testing in collaboration the US Army (the primary customer of GPS services) is hardly noteworthy.
[1] https://www.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Fact-Sheet-D...
Most plausible comment I found on the internet was the government lost something in that trapezoid and doesn't want anyone to fly over it and find it until it's collected.
Ah, so an alien's contact lens
Roswel is a few hours away by car. Interesting theory but they would lose it there.
I honestly assume it's something petty. Like an El Paso air traffic controller was rude to a deportation flight pilot.
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Nice, I would have fed it through rot13 first, giving:
4775722052636667727661205376797266
its hex ascii for : "The Epstein Files"
Not a bad theory actually. None of the stuff they have done to distract from the files has been without other purpose, but that is how it is done. You have a backlog of things you want to do ranked by unpopularity, and you try to only do one of them when you are being grilled over a worse one already. I'm sure it is down to a science and probably has a name.
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I don't think you need a NOTAM for that, you could just close the airport directly. And so far this administration hasn't shown itself to be particularly concerned about preventing the spread of infectious diseases like measles.
Without cutting off the roads first? That wouldn't make much sense, right?
People drive too much. Cut off ais travel and only a few care - who drive to Los Cruzes NM to fly. cut off roads and they will in mass break the barricades.
>People drive too much
That doesn't seem like a good argument for instituting a quarantine by blocking air travel but not ground travel. And why block everything including police, cargo and medivac flights for a quarantine?
It is why they won't block ground travel even though they might want to.
Then there's no real infection risk if they'll continue to let people drive out of the area, including let people drive a 4 or 5 hours to another airport to make their trip.
Closing the El Paso airspace will reduce the number of people flying, but not stop it, lots of people will make the drive to Tucson or Albuquerque to catch a flight.
I could maybe see it if it was, say, LAX which is a major travel hub, but shutting down a small regional airport without also shutting down ground travel is "quarantine theater" rather than a real quarantine.
I’m sorry I have to say I have never seen Las Cruces spelled like that.
Disgraphia - the inability to spell (and otherwise write well). Sorry about it.
Well, air travel spreads things harder and faster.
Sure, but people will just drive to the next closest airport and fly. Quarantine makes no sense as an explanation without accompanying roadblocks.
>Sure, but people will just drive to the next closest airport and fly
Tell me you've never been to west Texas.
The next closest airport is Juarez, it's like 6 miles away, full fledged international airport. It's a few hours walk at worst.
They really prefer you have a passport now, and the vast majority of people do not. Also, I doubt this admin would mind if there was suddenly an uptick in one way travel into Mexico
>The next closest airport is Juarez, it's like 6 miles away
...In Mexico, sure. The closest major US airport to El Paso is Albuquerque or Tucson, 4 hours each.
Well, this wins for silliest non-alien theory, with bonus points for the hyperbole of “concentration camp” to describe illegal immigrant detention.
In what way is it "hyperbole"? From the leaks and reporting I've come across it seems like a reasonable description.
It's not labour camps, and not extermination camps, but rather places where people are 'concentrated' while the bureaucracy figures out where to move them next.
If anything it's really weird to present it as having to do with supposedly illicit immigration, since citizens and people with residence permits are vacuumed up as well.
It's almost like these detention centers are holding concentrated amounts of people without due process
My guess is nuclear test.
Airport circle to secure the transport of the device to the ground adjacent to the test site.
Trapezoid is the test site, wider on the side that is less controllable (border-facing).
Disconnected because two separate teams executed in parallel without informed oversight.
... I don't think they're detonating a nuclear weapon in a National Monument 50 miles from a large US city...
There are plenty of better places for them to do this.
NTS was 60-80 mi away from Las Vegas.
yes there might be safer locations for an underground nuclear test, but how many of them offer the same "F U" PR capacity relative to Mexico/Juarez/cartels, etc.
A nuclear weapon is only "F U" PR to cartels if you believe they're literally braindead, which given that they run massive international businesses, I suspect they're not.
Nukes mean nothing to a cartel. What an insane idea.
It’s probably not SOP to land nuclear weapons at the municipal airport either.
There is a military base with its own airfield located within El Paso basically right next to El Paso International Airport.
While Mexican side has no restrictions - that would be supremely dumb even for a primary school level of thinking. Tons of civilians dead with clear reason who caused it, completely preventable.
Fantasy often likes extreme options but most probably saner reason like expected strike on cartels and their retaliation is whats happening.
Closure rescinded https://x.com/FAANews/status/2021583720465969421
The explanation given is that cartel air drones entered US airspace.
I guess my question is, doesn't this happen all the time? I would think drones would be an easy way to fly a Kilo over the border to whatever dropspot you wanted. I wonder what the new wrinkle is?
I think it's worth correcting the record here because drone warfare is pretty different from what actually happened. What they identified and shot down was a mylar party balloon.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airspace-closure-followed-spat-...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-military-shot-down-party...
The smuggling is nothing new. Sounds like they're testing laser-based countermeasures against them now.
> I guess my question is, doesn't this happen all the time?
Yes, all the time.
Will be interesting when/if more information is released. I am not sure why folks are so surprised or think it’s shocking. While definitely out of the norm, my mind was immediately thinking 10 days seems like an even number where you are trying to find or do something, not sure how long it’s going to take so you just stick it. Certainly odd that it’s only a few hours but for all I know there is some written government procedure for whoever is doing that sets it at 10 days.
don't attribute to security concerns...what can be explained by incompetence...
So bizarre
Why the 10 day announcement overnight only to totally rescind it before the majority of US citizens wake up and read the news?
If you shut it down for too long and there is a lapse in reopening it, planes are grounded for an extra bit of time.
If you shut it down for too short and there is a lapse in extending the grounding, planes are getting shot out of the sky (or whatever threat it was).
edit: I would add that maybe there are forms for shutting down airspace of various specific time lengths and a convenient time for something of unknown duration would be 10 days. 10 days might also be enough time to be sure whatever resources need to be brought to bear on this are available where an hour or day might not be. Shut it down basically indefinitely, or at least long enough that the crew who handles this extraordinary situation will be on hand to turn it off.
Hoping it slips under other news like "Woah someone else should pay for this wall/bridge/investigation" so no one really notices it. To be fair, seems most things are about trying to direct the news somewhere else, most of the times being successful at that too.
NYT reports they're claiming it was about testing anti-drone tech at Fort Bliss.
> The brief shutdown was related to a test of new counter-drone technology by the military at nearby Fort Bliss Army base, according to a person briefed on the matter.
There is also a detention center at Fort Bliss from which some very unsettling reports have emerged.
This is ridiculous and patently false. The US is equipped with many bases with permanent air space restrictions where they could perform such tests. It makes less than zero sense to test anti-drone tech in a crowded civilian space. I fully blame incompetence.
Latest update from NYT
> According to a social media post by the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace, prompting temporary closure of airspace over El Paso. The Defense Department took action to disable the drones, Mr. Duffy said. Another person familiar with the situation had described the cause of the shutdown as a test of anti-drone technology. It is unclear if the brief airport closure was directly related to the presence of drones or how the technology was deployed.
It does not seem implausible or unreasonable to me that an anti-drone system would trigger airspace restrictions when activated. Whether system activation is intended to put out a 10 days block is probably a different issue, but probably related to SOP for an event of unknown duration.
I'm not a huge fan of conspiracy theories, but starting a 240 hours closure, ending it after 4, and claiming it was a test? What sort of testing are they doing that they were off by two orders of magnitude about the duration?
Who knows. Maybe the system was malfunctioning and they didn't know how long it would take to shut it down. More likely the admin is just blabbing the first thing they think will shut everyone up.
Someone probably briefly thought they brought Skynet online via AI powered drones.
Hanlon’s Razor
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Someone probably just screwed up
You don't screw up something this major, it doesn't happen by accident nor by incompetence.
They had plans to bomb something south of that airport, they had to postpone those plans now that the info is public enough that whatever their target was is definitely aware of those plans.
They have confirmed it was for testing a counter-drone weapon. They did not say why they set it to expire in 10 days, that part seems like it was probably a mistake.
They gave you a plausible-enough reason and you took their word for it. That's completely fine, you are well within your rights to decide for yourself whether you believe them or not.
I don't, and since neither of us can know for sure given the info we've been given, it's useless for us to argue about our opinions.
I am curious, what explanation would justify a full closure of the airspace over a major us city for 10 days, in your opinion? That is the real screwup here. Whatever justification they are giving is entirely beside the point. Closing the airspace, even to emergency medevac flights, is negligence.
If there was ever a time when the old Soviet Union could have won the Cold War... Fortunately for us, the window of top-down incompetence came far too late.
Their stupidity is a true threat to our lives. Regardless of how you want to classify it we need to remove it as a threat.
WTF? The FAA announces a ban on all flights at an international airport and then withdraws the ban within a few hours of the announcement? What kind of insane police state would try a stunt like that? Even for the Trump administration, that is setting the bar at a new low.
You should have been here a month ago. The FAA halted all air traffic to and from the Caribbean region with no explanation (well, duh) and no announcement of a resume date. Then it was lifted 24 hours later with no notice.
I think the military did a thing without telling the FAA so they had to guess?
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So basically an ass-covering squabble between bureaucrats?
"can you guarantee shit will be fine?"
"we can't guarantee anything"
"so you're saying it won't be fine"
"no, I'm saying it will"
"so you're guaranteeing it'll be fine then"
"no, I said I can't make any guarantees"
"well if you can't guarantee it'll be fine we have to shut it all down and you'll have to explain that to the boss"
"be my fucking guest"
<shit proceeds to be fine and everyone looks like uncooperative assholes>
Trump needs to be impeached immediately for this. How dare he close airspace and then just lift that closure once the danger has passed.
What danger?
What kind of government would use their statutory authority to shut down an airport when there is a risk to the planes?
Why do you think the FAA doesn't have this authority? Or, why do you think the FAA shouldn't have this authority?
In other words: This may have been needed but poorly executed; this may have been incompetent planning and response. But I wouldn't call the FAA shutting down an airport "police state".
>> What kind of government would use their statutory authority to shut down an airport when there is a risk to the planes?
It could be either an incompetent government or an authoritarian government that is trying to militarize certain institutions of civilian life.
>> Why do you think the FAA doesn't have this authority? Or, why do you think the FAA shouldn't have this authority?
The FAA does indeed have the authority. The question is simply: why did the FAA choose to exercise its authority in this case? If there was a real danger to the public, then the FAA should be honest with the people and tell them what is the danger. That is what citizens should expect from a democratic government.
>> This may have been needed but poorly executed; this may have been incompetent planning and response. But I wouldn't call the FAA shutting down an airport "police state".
The reason why I ask if this is an example of police state behavior is because in this case the government apparently took drastic measures without explaining to the people why it was doing so.
Action to close airspace over a major city in the US for security reasons over extended period hasn’t happened since 9/11.
10 day closure for security reasons seems really long.
edit: Same restriction imposed around Santa Teresa, New Mexico. ~15 miles northwest of the El Paso airport.
To me the trapezoid suggests something traveling south fell in the area. Narrow at the top, wide at the bottom.
Maybe they dropped a nuke by accident (again)
That looks like a rather flat trapezoid for something that fell from high above.
With a fast-moving object, we can usually tell its trajectory across the map much more accurately than we can tell where along that trajectory it impacted the ground. See: MH370.
Maybe fits the "DoD is shooting something at some kind of incoming drone" explanation - they know they're shooting _from_ the top of the trapezoid but in terms of direction, only that they're vaguely facing south. (Doesn't really explain why the TFR doesn't extend into Mexico though.)
The area they would expect to find it would be much narrower than the area they would expect a plane overhead to be able to observe it.
According to postings on a couple Reddit discussions, this surprised the El Paso city council among others:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1r7tu/what_does...
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1r1pqnp/10_day_tfr_is...
They probably lost a nuke in the area. Wouldn't be the first time.
Honest question: do you mean it was stolen or it fell out of the plane by accident or something like that?
speculations are it's either related to ICE or drug cartel investigations
The former has a long history of not cooperating with local authorities (also in ways I personally think are sometimes quite malicious but that is off topic). Und normal circumstances ICE would never have the power to lead to a shut down of air space, but with the current administration who knows.
And drug cartel investigations won't cooperate with the city council as an investigation big enough to shut down airspace wouldn't want to risk it leaking by speaking with a city council about it.
But this is a pretty big deal and lets hope this is just about preventing some high ranking drug cartel members from fleeing and not some retaliatory horror story implicitly triggered by the repeated public rejections and denouncements of Trump in recent week. Like if we look at full (and violent) dictatorships(1) you would expect an internet outage to follow and then a lot of people to die.
(1): To be clear no the US is not a full blown violent dictatorship. Even through things are bad, they are not "that" bad. Through IMHO there seem to be people in the government which want to make it exactly that bad.
The president has way too much executive power. In my country everything is decided by a cabinet meeting in America one man orders and everyone obeys.
Theoretically a lot of that is true for the US.
It's just that
- both parties have undermined the separation of power, and expanded power of the president repeatedly for many years (e.g. with granting special privileges to the president after 9/11 which where way to broad and not strictly limited to a very short time)
- especially Trump has undermined/dismantled a lot of "checks and balances" mechanisms, including in his previous presidency
- people spreading "legal theories" which are very clearly nonsensical but at least half of the countries press pretending they are credible potentially true. As some are about the constitution you can see this as a direct propaganda attack against the US constitution. With close no consequence, too.
- the current supreme court is IMHO strange. They are not at all impartial and have interpreted laws multiple times in ways which are neither backed by the laws wording nor it's spirit (if you based the spirit on the history due to which the laws where made) with this decision often having been reasoned by what looks a lot like "make pretend everything is normal excuses". But at the same time it hasn't gone fully "we go with whatever Trump/Mega wants" or anything like that. I can't really understand what they are thinking, tbh.
so yes, the president has too much executive power at the moment. Both more then intended with the founding of the US, and in practice more then they even legally have.
You’ve left out that both chambers of congress is of the same party as POTUS and have abdicated their part in checks and balances.
Who forms the cabinet though? In a two party system - where one party seems to be built around a personality cult - cabinet can be filled with rubber stampers
Yeah, it could be formed by one person, or from two parties, or possibly by an even more opaque network of influence backed by god knows who.
The cabinet is formed with congressional approval which this spineless congress did with a rubber stamp
>To be clear no the US is not a full blown violent dictatorship.
The key word you forgot here is "yet".
>Even through things are bad, they are not "that" bad.
They will get "that" bad if you take on the attitude that things aren't that bad.
>IMHO there seem to be people in the government which want to make it exactly that bad.
We should act accordingly then.
Here's a direct link to the notice: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233
Temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) tend to be pretty terse, but they do usually call out "VIP" if they're due to someone visiting.
The type listing of "security" gets thrown around a lot, though. For example there's a permanent security TFR around the closest Air Force base to me (https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_5_8746) because they regularly fly unmanned aircraft that can't fly in insufficiently controlled airspace, and the standard airspace layout around an airport of that size isn't sufficient, so instead of making special rules for that airport, there's a "security" TFR to give air-traffic controllers extra control of what would normally be uncontrolled airspace.
It is pretty unusually to get such a short notice, and to not have instructions for exemptions.
No exemptions for medical life flights, local law enforcement, or even the military. You can read a more normal NOTAM posted for New Orleans likely for Mardi Gras (https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2231)
As a Minnesotan I wonder what this does to the deportation flights going to and from Camp East Montana.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it had lifted the temporary closure of airspace over El Paso that it had imposed last night. “All flights will resume as normal,” the F.A.A. said on social media.
What a bizarre move.
Reminds me of the chaos monkey. Building resilience by breaking and fixing stuff.
Not sure if applicable here, though.
The percentage of comments written primarily for the purpose irrational political ranting is frustrating, considering the genuinely interesting nature of the story.
"I wish all these people would stop pursuing politics discussions about an authoritarian regime, instead can't we all just talk about how interesting authoritarianism is?"
Weird take...
>> for the purpose irrational political ranting
> pursuing politics discussions
Did you intentionally ignore this specific point?
Closing a small patch of airspace while military activity is occurring is not authoritarianism. Get a grip you lunatic
I don't think anyone said closing this airspace was an authoritarian act... double check the posts above.
Live camera of runway https://app.truelook.cloud/dashboard/581/980/live
Linked from airport website: https://elpasointernationalairport.com/live-cameras/
Representative Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, said in a news conference that the explanation citing Mexican drones crossing the border as the reason for the closure was “not the information that we in Congress have been told.”
She said that there was no current or past threat to the area. “There’s no threat. There was not a threat, which is why the F.A.A. lifted this restriction so quickly,” she said. “The information coming from the administration does not add up.”
“There have been drone incursions from Mexico going back to as long as drones existed. So this is nothing new” (NYT)
Further commentary/speculation on this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1r1pqnp/10_day_tfr_is...
It includes a local city Councilmember who's says he is working to get more information.
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First of all, you want "font". Second of all, don't do that.
Or "fount" from older, non-American English.
Fount is definitely more correct. If we're talking a baptismal font, then it's font, but if were talking a fount of knowledge, the correct term is fount with font sometimes being used but derived from fount.
Etymology 1, meaning 3: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fount
Etymology 3: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/font
Thank you, I couldn’t remember which but I figured I’d hit Muphry’s Law either way.
Nuclear weapons test? The latest test treaty just expired.
Edit: There are two TFRs, one in El Paso and one right next to it in the mountains: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2234
I think not; it's not somewhere you can conduct a nuclear test without starting a war with Mexico. However it is interesting to look at the TFR area in Google maps; it looks just like a nuclear test site, but the craters are natural volcanoes.
Mexico isn’t going to start a war with the US. it would last a week at most, and they’d end up glowing even more than if the us ‘downwinded’ them all year.
If Mexico went to war with America they would rely on asymmetric insurgency tactics. They have no shortage of sympathetic people in America, not just Mexican nationals but native born Americans as well. America hasn't dealt with a genuine domestic insurgency situation before.
That's exactly what russia thought before invading the Ukraine.
Not to be pedantic but it’s just Ukraine. It is an independent country.
Russia calls is “the Ukraine” because they think it’s their territory and not an independent nation.
Probably just closing the airspace for the space alien emissary.
Welcome. Tremendous to have you here. Really historic. Some people said it couldn’t happen, but I said keep an open mind, and now look. Intergalactic diplomacy. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. We’re ready to make a deal, a fair deal, maybe the best deal in the galaxy.
Wouldn’t the Nevada Test Site be much better for this? Huge, government controlled, no major airports or cities, and moreover, already used for this sort of thing.
"A person familiar with the notices, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, said the action to close airspace over a major U.S. for security reasons over extended period hasn’t happened since immediately after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
https://elpasomatters.org/2026/02/11/unexplained-faa-order-s...
It shows how bad the lack of available sources is, when they interview someone familiar with the type notice in general, but not this specific notice.
FAA closed another airspace nearby: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2234
- From February 11, 2026 at 0630 UTC (February 10, 2026 at 2330 MST)
- To February 21, 2026 at 0630 UTC (February 20, 2026 at 2330 MST)
My guess is nuclear tests
it's too spontaneous for that
it it's "just" a training exercise or test they could have announced the closing weeks or month before it happening massively reducing the cost fallout from it
not that the current administration has in generally acted with care when it comes to causing huge financial damage to US cities, especially such they don't like
Maybe there's credible threat of MANPADs from the cartels? Wouldn't be the first time around, apparently.
https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1s4zt/faa_groun...
Stopping life flights though? The supposed risk of cartels shooting down a helicopter vs the immediate risk of "this guy is going to die if we don't fly him to the nearest trauma center"... That risk calculus doesn't make sense.
To be fair, risk calculus does not appear to be this administration's strong suit.
Lets just for a second pretend that cartel g2a attacks are the legitimate threat. You now have a decision in regards to sparing lives: 1 Life, ground the medivacs, vs 3-4 Lives and letting them fly. Risk the life of 1 person by not allowing them fly, vs risking more lives by Allowing them to fly. (I had to explain it again so that you hopefully understand)
Seems like they understand risk calculus more than you.
You forgot to weigh the relative likelihood of somebody needing a life flight to survive vs the likelihood of that flight being shot down. The first is very high, or they'd not have called for a helicopter, while the second is quite low even if there is a cartel psycho running around with MANPADS. They're more likely to hold their missile in reserve than to randomly fire it off at some helicopter out of the blue.
More likely to be related to the E Files than the X ones
Millions of dollars of stuck planes and cargo. If it was somebody’s fantasy, it sure was an expensive one - but I’m not sure I want to know what it was if it was a real thing
Probably $Bs. Around 100 flights per day from there, so there would be dozens of planes on the ground.
My money is on misplaced black budget project craft
Maybe that new F-47 did a trump and fell asleep somewhere in the desert
But they didn't block the desert, only air zone and also only directly above the city not beyond it.
That's kind of what I'm thinking too though my money would be on something like "super secret stealth cruise missile ripped off it's mounting pylon" or control software went crazy rather than an airframe loss.
It's likely be something small enough and with little/no fuel because if it left a big smoking hole they'd find it quick. And it's gotta be something with fairly questionable aerodynamic properties (i.e. damaged) or questionable guidance (i.e not an inadvertently released bomb) otherwise they'd have a very good idea of where it landed.
I wonder if the dormant volcanic field west of El Paso that is covered by the TFR may be similar to Iranian volcanic mountains?
Remember, the Netanyahoo just arrived in the US mere hours before this and it is always a bad omen when the devil comes to collect.
Am I hallucinating? Wasn't there just an identical thread on the front page not even an hour ago?
You aren’t, probably was flagged down by not being hacker enough (or more likely for being an open invitation to runaway speculation without any grounding in reality and facts)
This also seems to be an open invitation to runaway speculation.
A lot of the speculation is ridiculous given only a small area has been closed. That is not a prelude to war, for example!
War no, but extraction absolutely.
Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire were closed off the day before Maduro's extraction
Proper hackers are interested in homeschool propaganda, but not in closed airspace.
Could it be that USA government believe that Iran might be trying to do something similar to the Ukraine operation spiderweb, where they attacked the Russian long distance bomber fleet with short distance FPV drones? While there aren't bombers at Fort Bliss. As far as I know there are other high value targets.
Probably the least unhinged theory in this thread, but unfortunately it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If they had intel about such a threat, they'd have to move all high value assets to another base pronto. A flight ban won't stop a shady box truck from rolling into town and releasing a swarm of small drones.
(It would also be uncharacteristic of Iran to actually attack America directly, on American soil. Try to find examples of Iran doing that and you'll come up quiet short.)
You may want to recalibrate things. That’s just about the most unhinged theory here. So “Iran” is just going to go “well, shucks, I guess we can’t launch our drone swarm now that they issued a TFR.”
Not even to mention you’re ignoring the TFR far outside and away from El Paso over the Potrillo volcanic mountains
I can hear russia/iran now “darn they thwarted our plans to take out el paso and that mountain. There are absolutely zero other targets in the vicinity we can fly to. Zero in a 100 mile radius our drone has a capability to get to within 10 days. I mean if we had 11 days sure but how do they know 10 days???”
Your volcano theory is less unhinged, but most of the talk is about nuclear weapons tests, which would be enormously unhinged if that theory is true.
During the ICE surge in Chicago drone traffic was banned for a while but this is obviously much more extreme if for a similar reason. Note that at least on some roads out (I'm most familiar with the road to Carlsbad from El Paso since I used to have to travel there in grad school, often from ELP) there are already CBP checkpoints.
"Special security reason", sounds like a prelude to a special military operation?
Underground nuclear test and trying to mitigate the EMP grounding proximate planes?
An underground nuclear test is going to happen within ten miles of El Paso airport? Sounds unlikely
The second TFR which was released at the same time is in the NM desert directly east
Map of both: https://i0.wp.com/elpasomatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/...
Why wouldn't that be announced in advance? It'll be detectable internationally as soon as it happens.
If true they would have told the Russians and the Chinese and yes everybody will know after the fact. But for various reasons they might not want to disclose ahead of time in case Trump gets talked out of it or they realize they're not ready or various other reasons (perhaps the Energy Dept. doesn't actually want to do it but they're going forward step by step hoping it gets halted).
If they already know, complaining about it in advance will soften the public shock when it happens, which is probably not what Russia and China want. They'd prefer that the rest of the world be maximally shocked and outraged by such a transgression of international norms.
Judging by the previous actions of this administration — Operation Metro Surge 2: Tex-Mex Boogaloo
Reminds me of this: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-plot-plant-bombs-c...
El Paso is a hub for cargo. Probably takes some days to go through all that parcel.
Some drug cartel probably bought a SAM and they’re trying to find it.
According to CNN the entire airspace is closed, not just the airport https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/11/us/faa-el-paso-texas-flig...
It's closed below 18,000 ft, over a 10 nautical mile radius: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233
Could be a window for a bunch of deportation activity? It's not very low profile if that's the case.
NPR just announced the El Paso airport is back online for air travel.
This one's responding.
https://skyvector.com/?ll=31.836456906566234,-106.7029640846...
that link shows the wrong blocked airspace in my case
(it shows that some areas above the border in the desert are blocked off, which makes sense to fight drug smuggling by drones without risking mistaking drones with aircrafts)
but he article is about the new circular zone directly placed over El Paso with El Paso International Airport directly in it's center. (Interestingly because they used a circle it technically covers the Mexican side of the boarder including a part of the airport on their side, but practically FAA can't shut down Mexican airspace so it's misleading).
Also worth noting there is:
- Holloman Air Force Base
- White Sands Missile Range
- Fort Bliss
- Fort Bliss McGregor Range
direct besides the city
so a Military exercise, or deployment of Military (Trump has said he will bomb cartel hideouts in Mexico) can be added to the list of possibilities
I wonder if this was issued by the VP’s Secret Service to the FAA directly; they got caught last year fucking with DC airspace using a beacon spoofer, and they would (presumably, they’re the SS) have the authority to issue these secretly without having to be named and answer for the impact: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/aviation-flights-whi...
(See also Die Hard 2, I suppose.)
But: of the “less simple than invading Mexico” theory (which would be trivial to confirm or refute with binoculars and telescopes) I think the nuclear testing theory is more likely, as it would be in character for the current U.S. administration to decide to turn a border region radioactive to both decrease both the quantity of, and the median fertility of, those who cross the border, especially following posturing about health care costs. Presumably the U.S. does not view itself as liable to Mexico for across-the-border downwinder’s treatment costs. Not seeing a spike in KI prices in a couple spot checks, though.
Hopefully it’s something offensive enough to finally get the world to embargo Palantir.
I did not have “airspace closed for ten days to shoot down a drone with lasers” anywhere on my bingo card. Huh. When life gives you lemons, file a TFR about it, I suppose.
Related to the Guthrie kidnapping perhaps?
They have issued orders about banning drones around ICE agents, so it's possible the terrorist agency ICE are building a base there. ICE have been given a massive funding boost so it has to go somewhere. Or its the works for some kind of military invasion of Cuba or Mexico.
Idk what the topography of the place is. If possible someone should put a telescope there and see what's up.
Aliens? I want to believe...
It was reported on Democracy Now! that an anonymous source said the military representing Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss (KBIF) couldn't guarantee safety of commercial air traffic around El Paso International Airport (KELP). There was no specific details communicated and the message released caused unnecessary panic. The most likely explanation seems to be an unresolved dispute between the military and the FAA related to improving airspace safety around military flight tracks near major airports (class B/C/D airspace).
FAA has rescinded the TFR - looks like a possible DoD goof in relation to army exercises, leading to the FAA being overcautious.
> BREAKING: A source briefed by FAA tells me the El Paso flight ban was driven by military operations from Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss https://x.com/petemuntean/status/2021573468341383284
Probably an attempt to embarrass the admin. Now watch for the orangemanbad articles about a reckless military operation personally planned by the president in the middle of the night on X.
Hah im trying to be tongue-in-cheek but I have to admit that doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility actually lol
Crashed alien vehicle recovery?
Downed UAP recovery?
doesn't need commercial air space lock down, at most private/small low altitude/drone plain lock down
If there were some mundane reason for the shutdown (e.g. ATC staffing, or volcanic ash) it wouldn't be a secret, and if there were an emergency (one severe enough to ground all aircraft for so song) we would've heard or seen something.
Occam's Razor says, this order came down from Trump. If that's the case, only question remaining would be what is he planning.
Well, if the only comparable antecedent is closing American airspace after 9/11, and that order came down from Bush, it seems reasonable to suppose that this order came down from Trump.
As for why? No clue.
If a reasonable administration took this step without any justification, I'd have serious questions.
Under this administration, I'm very very concerned that it's cover for something deeply nefarious.
“For special security reasons”. Is a “special military operation “ following? Maybe somebody in Mexico said something mean about the president.
But seriously, is this normal without any explanation? The cost must be enormous.
it's in general highly abnormal
which kinda makes it normal to not have a explanation
because anything abnormal enough to cause something like that is also likely something kept secret until it's done
(Like large scale operations against drug cartel, "special military operation", or a large scale ICE operation which shouldn't be able to cause this but does because the current administration is uh, what it is.)
What are the odds that Claudia the President of Mexico has already been extracted now?
Has anybody checked the pizza/chinese takeout traffic in DC?
https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233
This isnt a particularly special thing. It's a catchall rule and given the identical one to the west, it looks like a common military one.
Neither military nor medevac is exempted. This is unusual.
The medevac is scary. This could cost lives. Hopefully there's a reason but, given how clumsy this admin is, who can say?
Strike on Mexico incoming.
Anything to distract from Congress getting unredacted access to Trumps good friend's files/emails and naming 6 of their potential clients.
There is a slim possibility that if it was airtraffic control equipment upgrades, but that would be put in the bullitin and known about long in advance, that it is just imposed with no warning is wrong and just shows how the FAA is becoming more 3 letter every day.
Is Trump planning to attack Mexico?
Another distraction from the Trump Files.
guys. it's aliens. nbd.
If it was aliens trump would be telling everyone and taking credit for finally telling the people the truth.
No, he’d be rounding them up and deporting them. Have you not been reading the news lately?
The entire conspiracy theory industry is praying that the closure runs its course for the established 10 days and then everything is re-opened and the reasons behind the closure are not further explained or even better become classified
Not saying this isn't suspect though.
"Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker"
Well surely they wouldn't block flights for ten days because of ad blockers?
Ads are pretty risky, it could happen
It is alright, the site of FOX is not whatng cartel web engine gated like the site of the times.
I'm from El Paso. This is bullshit if I've ever heard. There are no fucking drones around here, especially not from cartels. The only criminal cartel here is ICE.
"Wag The Dog" movie all over again. Sure looks like deflection from the Epstein Files and economy.
Launching the invasion of Canada and Greenland perhaps..
Aren't those countries thousands of miles away from El Paso, Texas?
Please understand, Geography is only taught for optional extra credit in American schools.
(I wish this were a joke.)
What? I had to take Geography.
They taught us that Geography is old fashioned so the geography classes and history were all replaced with "Social Studies" at some time in the 80s. Most of that class was just about reading holocaust books, I think we had a week or two where they taught us what islands and fjords are, but the only time putting names to countries and capitals on a map came up was an optional extra credit quiz in 8th grade. Most people skipped it.
We had to take Geography, Social Studies, World History, American History, Civics, etc. as separate classes.
Islands/fjords etc were covered in Geology/Earth Science, and we also took separate courses for those as well.
Geography was reserved for understanding where things are in the Earth, how borders are defined, a little bit of world history as far as borders changing, etc. And also Apartheid for some reason because I guess they didn't know where else to stick that lesson in.
Rote memorization has never been my strong suit and so I suffered a lot in geography as it was taught to me. I got a D in that class. Now that I'm out of school and can actually properly learn, it all sticks a lot better because I've learned to contextualize everything and link together facts.
Well you take this sharpie and draw a line and bam direct line of attack - if it works for hurricanes it will work for war plans
Cuba could be one. While Florida is closer, it's possible due to El Paso being considered highly isolated.
If it is for a military reason (very doubtful at this point), there is a country that is literally 0 miles away from El Paso.
Invasion of Mexico is also possible ...
>President Donald Trump said US forces will "start now hitting land" in Mexico targeting drug cartels
https://www.euronews.com/2026/01/09/trump-says-us-to-start-n...
(Jan 2026)
