On February 11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reversed the closure measure of the El Paso airport, Texas, on the border with Mexico. The announcement of the reopening came as unexpectedly as the closure for ten days for “special security reasons.” Now, the US Secretary of Transportation has revealed that the sighting of Mexican cartel drones that "invaded" the space around the El Paso airport motivated the closure.
First modification: 02/11/2026 - 18:36 Last modification: 02/11/2026 - 18:45
The airspace around the El Paso air terminal, in Texas, was reopened on February 11, shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced its closure for ten days, citing “special security reasons.”
The original order had raised eyebrows among airlines, including Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, which began canceling flights while thousands of passengers were stranded without explanation.
Similar measures were even issued for two other airports, Santa Teresa in New Mexico, whose airspace was also closed for 10 days, and New Orleans, in Louisiana, for five.
But shortly after, the FAA lifted the measure that affected El Paso and it is now known that this was due to the incursion of drones from Mexican cartels in the vicinity of the El Paso airport, as the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, revealed in X.
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The official indicated that his office and the Department of Defense “acted quickly to address a cartel drone incursion” and noted that “the threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
Duffy did not specify the number of drones involved or what means were used to disable them, but it is believed that the closure was originally indicated to establish coordination between the FAA and the Pentagon, which were trying to determine what risks military anti-drone technologies could pose to commercial aviation.
The El Paso airport handles approximately four million passengers each year. It serves a city of 700,000 inhabitants, and although it borders Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, the FAA warning did not include the airspace on the other side of the border.
In her usual morning contact with the media, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum assured that she had “no information on the use of drones on the border” and invited “the FAA or any area of the United States Government, which if you want information you can ask the Government of Mexico.”
The FAA has not updated the status for the other two US airports affected by its warnings.
Recent precedents
Similar measures affected the Maiquetía Flight Information Region (FIR) in Venezuela in December, within the framework of Operation Lanza del Sur, which has bombed several dozen boats supposedly loaded with drugs in the Caribbean off Venezuela and in the Pacific next to Colombia.
All international airlines that served Venezuela suspended their activity and the Government of the now deposed Nicolás Maduro revoked their operating licenses. During the closure of the airspace, Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were extracted by Delta forces to appear before a New York court for crimes related to drug trafficking.
Even with all forecasts in place and under observation, a JetBlue flight that departed Curaçao bound for New York on December 12 had to make evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision with a United States Air Force tanker plane that was flying with its transponders off, and therefore undetectable.
In mid-January, the FAA also issued an alert to airlines to exercise extreme caution when transiting the airspace on the Pacific coasts of several countries from Ecuador to Mexico, citing risks of possible military activities.
That warning was canceled on February 3, when President Donald Trump also announced the reopening of Venezuelan airspace.
The prospect of an air attack on Mexico, directed against drug trafficking cartels, has been left open since Donald Trump's return to the White House. In January, he explicitly referred to the possibility of deploying US forces and attacking ground targets related to these criminal organizations.
With Reuters and AP
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