Drones? Lasers? Texas Airport Closure Causes Confusion, Concerns From Industry Experts

In the wake of the airspace closure in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday morning, a variety of theories are circulating regarding the true cause of the unexpected incident.

When the Federal Aviation Administration initially announced the airspace closure, unspecified security concerns were cited as the cause, and government agencies said all flights would need to be stopped for 10 full days.

The FAA made this abrupt announcement without any advance coordination or communication with El Paso city officials, El Paso airport officials, or local hospital officials (who also operate medical flights in the local airspace).

Juliette Kayyem, faculty director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Homeland Security Project and assistant DHS secretary during the Obama Administration, told PBS News, "That failure to communicate is unacceptable."

Further heightening confusion, just a short time after announcing the 10-day shutdown, the FAA completely reversed course and reopened the airspace.

Moreover, the only explanation provided surrounding the series of perplexing airspace decisions was that the action was taken "out of an abundance of caution." Federal officials also cited potential drone activity in the area as a reason for the closure.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reinforced that explanation on X, saying the FAA and the Department of War had acted quickly to "address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region."

 

The drone rationale for the shutdown, however, has since proven not to be credible, and the entire incident has triggered outrage among local officials. Here's a closer look.

Drug cartel drone theory not credible

During an interview with PBS News, Kayyem, the faculty director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Homeland Security Project, made clear that drones in the airspace over El Paso's airport is not a new development or something that would suddenly require a 10-day shutdown.

"According to NORAD, the military division, thousands of drone excursions happen between Mexico and the U.S. monthly," Kayyem said.

"There is nothing new about a drone excursion," added Kayyem, who called the drone explanation "a false story."

Kayyem also stressed that the FAA's initial decision to issue a sweeping, 10-day airspace closure was highly unusual. By comparison, when the United States bombed Venezuela recently, airspace orders surrounding that incident only involved a one-day closure.

"Basically the notice goes out by the FAA. People like me see it, and go…I cannot describe how unique this is…No notice. Just comes out of nowhere. And it's a 10 day no flight."

"So no-one knows what's coming. There's silence. Then there's a false story—that's the best way of putting it—about Mexican cartels and drones."

Pentagon laser testing theory more plausible

A far more credible theory has since emerged regarding the El Paso airspace closure. Various news organizations have reported that the closure was actually caused by the Pentagon testing a new anti-drone defense system and doing so without giving aviation officials a chance to assess its danger to commercial flights.

In particular, The New York Times reported that "Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft," according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

Concerns about the lack of understanding surrounding the impacts of the anti-drone laser on commercial planes may have caused the FAA to abruptly shut down El Paso airspace. 

"The Pentagon has been trying out what's called high energy laser technology," Kayyem told PBS. "Very powerful electricity that comes through a laser. The public does not know exactly the capacity of this technology, but it's suspected it could probably bring down a commercial airplane."

This new laser technology is being tested at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Kayyem explained.

"Perhaps they tested it out prematurely? The FAA gets nervous and says 'We don't know what's going on in the sky' and makes this sweeping judgement," continued Kayyem. "So everything we heard from the administration was essentially not accurate."

Kayyem added that if the Pentagon was testing laser technology without notifying the FAA, as appears to have been the case, it is very concerning. In particular, she pointed to the deadly crash that occurred in Washington D.C.'s airspace between a commercial airplane and a Blackhawk helicopter in January 2025 that left 67 people dead.

"You don't mess around with commercial aviation space. We saw what happened in January 2025," Kayyem added.

Administration's lack of communication draws outrage

On the ground in El Paso, the local mayor decried the federal government's handling of the entire incident, most especially the lack of communication and the subsequent confusion.

"I want to be very, very clear that this should have never happened," Mayor Renard Johnson said during a press conference. "You can not restrict airspace over a major city, without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable."

Kayyem, on this front, did not mince words either during her interview with PBS News.

"It's not good, just from a communications standpoint, because we're talking about commercial aviation space. Passengers in the air. And a lack of coordination and confusion at best," she said.

The airspace shutdown also had a variety of ramifications for life in El Paso. Because nobody in the city was notified ahead of time, local hospitals were forced to quickly divert medical flights taking place to a city 45 minutes away. That put people's healthcare at risk, said Kayyem.

There are also protocols that are supposed to be followed, which were not followed by the Trump Administration or the FAA in this case.

Representatives from local, state, federal, and the private sectors meet every morning to discuss what's taking place each day, Kayyem said. None of these parties were notified about the airspace shutdown.

"The protocols are in fact there," said Kayyem, who concluded that the incident is an example of the fact that "There is no homeland for this administration…that federal agencies do things without coordination with state and local officials."

Senator Maria Cantwell's office issued a statement that included similar criticism: "Yesterday's incident in El Paso reminds me of why…interagency coordination is so important," said Cantwell, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. 

"If we can get into this kind of conflict, where the FAA is saying that we're going to shut down airspace for ten days, and then another agency is saying something different – and there's concern about what is happening in the airspace—it just seems to me that we have a real problem of coordination between DoD and FAA. We need to resolve that" said Cantwell.

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