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Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

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Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#111
post #58

According to postings on a couple Reddit discussions, this surprised the El Paso city council among others: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1r7tu/what_does... and https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1r1pqnp/10_day_tfr_is...

speculations are it's either related to ICE or drug cartel investigations The former has a long history of not cooperating with local authorities (also in ways I personally think are sometimes quite malicious but that is off topic). Und normal circumstances ICE would never have the power to lead to a shut down of air space, but with the current administration who knows. And drug cartel investigations won't cooperate…

The president has way too much executive power. In my country everything is decided by a cabinet meeting in America one man orders and everyone obeys.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#113
The entire conspiracy theory industry is praying that the closure runs its course for the established 10 days and then everything is re-opened and the reasons behind the closure are not further explained or even better become classified

Not saying this isn't suspect though.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#114
As someone else mentioned, there’s some speculation in aviation subreddits that the bounds of the altitude restriction map to the MANPAD capabilities that some cartels are purported to have.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1s4zt/comment/o...

My read is that the admin is planning forceful strikes on the cartels within Mexico and is worried about their ability to retaliate by taking down US aircraft across the border.

Edit: The closure has now been kiboshed. The wording seems a little “don’t panic-y” to me, but better that than the alternative! https://x.com/FAANews/status/2021583720465969421

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#115

Map : https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_0091

that link shows the wrong blocked airspace in my case

(it shows that some areas above the border in the desert are blocked off, which makes sense to fight drug smuggling by drones without risking mistaking drones with aircrafts)

but he article is about the new circular zone directly placed over El Paso with El Paso International Airport directly in it's center. (Interestingly because they used a circle it technically covers the Mexican side of the boarder including a part of the airport on their side, but practically FAA can't shut down Mexican airspace so it's misleading).

Also worth noting there is:

- Holloman Air Force Base

- White Sands Missile Range

- Fort Bliss

- Fort Bliss McGregor Range

direct besides the city

so a Military exercise, or deployment of Military (Trump has said he will bomb cartel hideouts in Mexico) can be added to the list of possibilities

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#116
post #58

According to postings on a couple Reddit discussions, this surprised the El Paso city council among others: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1r7tu/what_does... and https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1r1pqnp/10_day_tfr_is...

They probably lost a nuke in the area. Wouldn't be the first time.

Honest question: do you mean it was stolen or it fell out of the plane by accident or something like that?

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#118

“For special security reasons”. Is a “special military operation “ following? Maybe somebody in Mexico said something mean about the president. But seriously, is this normal without any explanation? The cost must be enormous.

it's in general highly abnormal

which kinda makes it normal to not have a explanation

because anything abnormal enough to cause something like that is also likely something kept secret until it's done

(Like large scale operations against drug cartel, "special military operation", or a large scale ICE operation which shouldn't be able to cause this but does because the current administration is uh, what it is.)

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#119

https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233 This isnt a particularly special thing. It's a catchall rule and given the identical one to the west, it looks like a common military one.

Neither military nor medevac is exempted. This is unusual.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

speculations are it's either related to ICE or drug cartel investigations The former has a long history of not cooperating with local authorities (also in ways I personally think are sometimes quite malicious but that is off topic). Und normal circumstances ICE would never have the power to lead to a shut down of air space, but with the current administration who knows. And drug cartel investigations won't cooperate…

The president has way too much executive power. In my country everything is decided by a cabinet meeting in America one man orders and everyone obeys.

Who forms the cabinet though? In a two party system - where one party seems to be built around a personality cult - cabinet can be filled with rubber stampers
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