Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

The secretary of transportation said the military had neutralized a drug cartel drone. Two officials said testing of counter-drone technology prompted the closure. The F.A.A. initially said it would last 10 days.

El Paso International Airport on Wednesday after reopening.
Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Initially, the agency cited “special security reasons” late Tuesday night, halting all flights to and from El Paso International Airport for 10 days and isolating a major American metropolitan area from air travel. The closure, which appeared to surprise state and local officials, went into effect at 11:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday and was lifted a little before 7 a.m. on Wednesday.

“There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the agency said on social media. “All flights will resume as normal.”

Representative Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, pushed back on the drone explanation given by Trump administration officials, saying at a news conference it was “not the information that we in Congress have been told.”

She added: “There was not a threat, which is why the F.A.A. lifted this restriction so quickly. The information coming from the administration does not add up.”

Renard Johnson, the mayor of El Paso, said at a news conference that many local officials remained unclear why the agency took such a drastic action, and that the “failure to communicate is unacceptable.” He said it resulted in a series of chaotic events around El Paso, including medical evacuation flights forced to divert to Las Cruces, N.M., a city about 45 miles to the northwest.

“This unnecessary decision has caused chaos and confusion in the El Paso community,” Mr. Johnson said. “I want to be very, very clear that this should’ve never happened. You cannot restrict air space over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership.”

Here’s what else to know:

• Cartel drones:  Drones have become a prominent tool and weapon used by Mexican cartels across Mexico in recent years, according to cartel operatives, security analysts and some government officials on both sides of the border. While Trump administration officials have warned for months about cartels using them near the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexican officials have publicly been more skeptical, downplaying the threat drones pose at the border.  Read more ›

• Counter-drone program:  In July, Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Homeland Security Department, testified before Congress and asked lawmakers to continue the program. He said that 27,000 drones had flown within about 1,650 feet of the border over six months in 2024, piloted by organizations hostile to law enforcement. He did not go into detail on the nature of the anti-drone technology the department was testing.

• Airport : The airport in El Paso, the 23rd-most populous city in the nation according to the 2020 census, serves a vast swath of West Texas and eastern New Mexico and offers direct flights to hubs across the southwestern United States, as well as to cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle. The nearest major U.S. airport is in Albuquerque, about 270 miles away.

• Disrupted travel : Alex Torres, 42, was among the travelers who arrived at the airport unaware that flights had been grounded. Ms. Torres, who was expecting to fly to New York for business, said she spoke with an American Airlines representative on the phone who had yet to hear the news. “They didn’t know anything about the airport being closed,” she said.

U.S. officials have warned about cartel drones at the border.

What is clear is that drones have become  a prominent tool and weapon  used by Mexican cartels across Mexico in recent years, according to cartel operatives, security analysts and some government officials on both sides of the border.

Steven Willoughby, director of the counter-drone program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, testified to Congress in July that U.S. officials detected more than 60,000 drone flights within 500 meters of the U.S.-Mexico border in the second half of 2024 — or 326 flights a day — many at night and above the 400-foot maximum altitude allowed for drones.

He added that U.S. officials have seized thousands of pounds of drugs transported across the border on drones since 2019, including over 1,200 pounds in the second half of 2024. In October 2023, he said U.S. officials intercepted a drone carrying 3.6 pounds of fentanyl pills traveling from Mexico into the United States. He suggested officials had arrested more than 1,500 people in relation to such drone activity at the border.

Noting that Mexican cartels have been repeatedly shown to use drones in their warfare inside Mexico, Mr. Willoughby told Congress, “It is only a matter of time before Americans or law enforcement are targeted in the border region.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico disputed Mr. Willoughby’s July testimony the next day in her morning press conference. She said that Mexican officials had observed the cartels using drones against one another inside Mexican territory, but not at the border.

“There is no information regarding new drones currently at the border,” she said.

She added that U.S. and Mexican officials were collaborating closely at the border but that drones were not an issue there. “There is communication, there is coordination. There isn’t anything, let’s say, to be particularly alarmed about right now,” she said.

Mexico’s navy secretary, Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, added in the July news conference that the cartels’ drones “have not been detected at the border.”

On Tuesday, Ms. Sheinbaum again disputed U.S. officials’ characterization of the threat of drones at the border.

“There is no information about the use of drones at the border,” she said in her morning news conference, shortly after news broke about the temporary closure of the El Paso airspace. She said that even though Mexican airspace was not closed, her government would investigate why the U.S. side was closed. El Paso sits along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Yet security analysts and one Mexican state security official said the cartels have been using drones at the U.S.-Mexico border for surveillance and smuggling drugs.

Over the past year, officials have seen a rise in cartel drone activity at the border, including for drug smuggling and monitoring U.S. law enforcement movements, according to a Mexican state security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security matters publicly.

The Cartel Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations, has the financial muscle to acquire and deploy advanced technology for its operations. About a decade ago, it was the first major cartel to make systematic, large-scale use of drones, adapting different models for surveillance, combat and transport.

In Michoacán state, the center of a territorial war involving the Jalisco cartel and rival groups, officials have documented the widespread use of drones to drop explosive devices, terrorizing rural communities. Cartel operatives there have used drones capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms of explosives, the Mexican official said.

James Wagner contributed reporting from Mexico City.

Mayor Renard Johnson of El Paso said the airspace closure caused a series of chaotic events around the city. Many medical evacuation flights were forced to divert to Las Cruces, N.M., about 45 miles northwest of El Paso, for example, he said.