Republicans, Democrats want to hear from government about anti-drone laser that shut down El Paso airport
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The Federal Aviation Administration’s brief closure of the El Paso airport due to safety concerns over the military’s anti-drone use is unacceptable, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee said Thursday.
The FAA moved late Tuesday to close a Texas airport for 10 days after the Pentagon vowed to move forward with deploying an anti-drone system without completing a safety review, then backtracked eight hours later to lift the closure.
“We have a big problem with cooperation between the team [Department of Defence] and the FAA, so we have to resolve that,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said at the hearing.
The Pentagon has authorized US Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser in the area, two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.
The sudden closure of the nation’s 71st busiest airport, in the border city of Juarez, Mexico, has disrupted air travelers and disrupted medical evacuation flights. The FAA initially said the closure of the airport, which handles four million passengers annually, was due to “special safety reasons.” The 10-day shutdown would have been unprecedented involving a single airport.
Government and airline officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FAA had closed the airspace because of concerns that the Army’s laser-based counter-drone system could pose a threat to aviation. The two organizations had planned to discuss the issue on February 20, but the Army chose to proceed without FAA approval, sources said, prompting the FAA to ground the flights.
Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican chairman of the commerce committee, said he wanted a secret meeting to understand what happened.
The original meaning is in question
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, said the drone ban was caused by a Mexican drone attack. However, the sight of a drone near an airport would usually result in a temporary stoppage of traffic, not an extended closure.
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district covers an area of about 1,300 miles (1,300 km) along the Texas-Mexico border, said cartel drone sightings are common.
“For any of us who live and work along the border, the daily attacks by criminal organizations with drones is our daily life. It’s Wednesday for us,” Gonzales said.
Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress in July that cartels use drones almost daily to transport drugs across the border and to monitor Border Patrol agents.
More than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he said, mostly at night.
Mexican officials led by President Claudia Sheinbaum also expressed doubts about Duffy’s request on Wednesday.
It was another incident of confusion and miscommunication between the FAA and the Pentagon, following an investigation into a collision last year between a commercial airliner and an Army helicopter near Washington, DC, that killed 67 people.
After that fatal incident, the National Transportation Safety Board said it found that the FAA and the Army failed to share safety information about close calls near Reagan National Airport in DC.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a former Army helicopter pilot who serves on committees focused on aviation and the armed services, said Wednesday’s issue was the latest example of “the lack of engagement that exists in this Trump administration.”
In eight hours in El Paso, seven arrivals and seven departures were canceled. Some medical evacuation flights also had to be diverted.
