By David Shepardson, Idrees Ali and Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Wednesday allowed flights to resume in and out of the Texas border city of El Paso, after abruptly barring all air traffic due to what officials said was a drone incursion by a Mexican drug cartel.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had earlier said air traffic could be cancelled for 10 days, in what appeared to be an unprecedented action for a single airport.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the FAA and the Pentagon had shut down the airspace to deal with a cartel drone. “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region,” he said on social media.
Government and airline officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FAA closed the airspace due to safety concerns about a laser-based counterdrone system being tested at the U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss, which is next to El Paso International Airport. The FAA lifted its restrictions after the Army agreed to more safety tests before using the system.
One source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FAA’s sudden closure took the rest of the government by surprise.
Airline officials said the closure was prompted by coordination issues between the Pentagon and the FAA as they sought to assess what risk the Pentagon’s counterdrone technologies might pose to U.S. air traffic. The FAA has not explained why its safety concerns were resolved so quickly.
The move had stranded numerous aircraft from Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines at the nation’s 71st busiest airport, which handles about 4 million passengers annually.
AIRLINES CAUGHT OFF GUARD
Airlines were caught off-guard by the early Wednesday announcement, which also grounded medical helicopter flights. Southwest Airlines said the effects should be minimal for its 23 daily departures scheduled.
“FAA has not exactly acquitted itself credibly, objectively, or professionally,” said Bob Mann, an airline industry consultant. “The question should be, do we get an explanation?”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to deploy U.S. military force against Mexican drug cartels, which have used drones to carry out surveillance and attacks on civilian and government infrastructure, according to U.S. and Mexican security sources.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference that her administration would try to find out what exactly happened but had no information about drone traffic along the border.
Tensions between the U.S. and regional leaders have ramped up since the Trump administration mounted a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean, attacked Venezuela and seized its president, Nicolas Maduro, in a military operation. The FAA curbed flights throughout the Caribbean after the attack, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Idrees Ali in Washington and Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Steve Holland, Doyinsola Oladipo, Raul Cortes Fernandez, Idrees Ali, Laura Gottesdiener, Andy Sullivan; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski. Franklin Paul and Andrea Ricci )
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