The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around the El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning after initially announcing late Tuesday it would be closed for 10 days, grounding all flights into and out of the airport.
Early Wednesday morning, the FAA shared that the temporary closure of the airport has been lifted and there is no threat to commercial aviation. Flights will resume as normal, the FAA said.
Why caused the airspace closure over El Paso?
The FAA initially listed the cause of the closure as “special security reasons.”
On Wednesday morning Nick Schifrin of NewsHour reported that an administration official said the closure was due to “Mexican cartel drones” breaching U.S. airspace. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took action to “disable the drones” and has now determined that there’s no threat to commercial travel.
The Deseret News has reached out to the FAA for more information about what happened and what the potential threat was, but CNN had a source confirm that it was military related.
“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,” CNN’s Pete Muntean said. “The FAA acted after the Defense Department could not assure civilian flight safety.”
The El Paso airport initially said the closure would last from Feb. 10-20 and travelers should contact their airlines to get the latest information about their flights. In an Instagram post following the closure, the El Paso airport issued a travel advisory and shared that all flights, including commercial, cargo and general aviation were halted due to the FAA’s flight restriction.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, had urged the FAA to lift the restriction.
“From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas,” she said before the restrictions were lifted.
Once the flight restriction was lifted, she shared that there is no immediate threat to El Paso or surrounding areas.