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Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

nytimes.com

451–460 of 631 posts

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

#451
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> yup, it was a lie Note that Rep Crockett doesn't claim inside information, she was just entering a newspaper article into the record. Presumably you also want to fact-check the newspaper article. https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/11/el-paso-air-space-cl...

Reuters has it too. It was indeed a lie.

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

#452

The percentage of comments written primarily for the purpose irrational political ranting is frustrating, considering the genuinely interesting nature of the story.

[flagged]

>> for the purpose irrational political ranting

> pursuing politics discussions

Did you intentionally ignore this specific point?

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who are we (the US)? People who wantonly murder people on fishing boats, etc.

I’m not saying our cartel is any better…

Your use of "our" makes me wonder if the people of Mexico see the drug cartels as "theirs".

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying our cartel is any better…

Your use of "our" makes me wonder if the people of Mexico see the drug cartels as "theirs".

Merely pointing out that the US administration is operating like a cartel now a days.

I doubt Mexicans see the Mexican cartels as “theirs” in the same way. Cartels have only been interested in paying off politicians and (as far as I’m aware) weren’t interested in being politicians. However, our politicians here… would LOVE to be Cartel members and make millions it seems. Because they definitely don’t give a shit about law and order.

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

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it meant to be "up to 10 days" rather than 10 days? If the drones are no longer flying over the airport it makes sense they'd open it back up.

The closure was for 10 days full stop. I can't think of a reason to do that in response to an active threat.

I think the point was to get headlines and attention, as someone else said it sounds like the FAA is frustrated that the DoD isn't cooperating, and this seems like a possible attempt to make this frustration public to pressure DoD into playing more nicely.

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

#456

Closure rescinded https://x.com/FAANews/status/2021583720465969421

The explanation given is that cartel air drones entered US airspace. I guess my question is, doesn't this happen all the time? I would think drones would be an easy way to fly a Kilo over the border to whatever dropspot you wanted. I wonder what the new wrinkle is?

I think it's worth correcting the record here because drone warfare is pretty different from what actually happened. What they identified and shot down was a mylar party balloon.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airspace-closure-followed-spat-...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-military-shot-down-party...

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really pass the sniff test. Why would you need a 10 day closure to deal with a drone incursion? I'm guessing DoD and the FAA were squabbling over a test the military wanted to run, and it didn't go up the chain fast enough to get resolved before testing was scheduled to begin. Edit: Here's the actual notice from the FAA[1]. Note that it was issued at 0332 UTC, but the restrictions weren't scheduled to go into…

Recent updates say this was a unilateral call by FAA because DOD was refusing to coordinate with them for creating safety corridors for DOD drones and/or HEW usage. Issues came to a head after DOD shot down a highly threatening mylar party balloon, which FAA evidently considered to be a somewhat reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.

reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.

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

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them just like 9/11 or the Iran hostage crisis. The US has been trying to extent the "foreign terrorist" label and casus belli to drug activities forever to justify military operations (ex. the "arrest" of Maduro was for drugs, not oil/Cuba/political stuff). That would be a massive self-own on the cartels part. (And if…

> A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.

The world where Americans buy billions in illegal drugs every year and turn a blind eye to cartels. "My dealer is nice"

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

#459
post #436
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they shot the drone down with a laser: > UPDATE (CNN): Source briefed by FAA tells me that military activity behind the El Paso flight ban included unmanned aircraft operations and laser countermeasure testing in airspace directly adjacent to civilian routes into El Paso International. Airspace restriction just lifted. https://x.com/petemuntean/status/2021586247827828812

Good thing they allocated 10 days of airspace shutdown for taking out a single (edit: or a few) drone(s). I get the feeling this was a case of really wanting to test a new weapon combined with general organizational dysfunction for something unusual like this. On CNN, they talked about how a shutdown like this would be the first time something like this has happened since 9/11. Is that really correct?

How do we know it was a "single" drone, or that they knew for sure that it was?

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really pass the sniff test. Why would you need a 10 day closure to deal with a drone incursion? I'm guessing DoD and the FAA were squabbling over a test the military wanted to run, and it didn't go up the chain fast enough to get resolved before testing was scheduled to begin. Edit: Here's the actual notice from the FAA[1]. Note that it was issued at 0332 UTC, but the restrictions weren't scheduled to go into…

Recent updates say this was a unilateral call by FAA because DOD was refusing to coordinate with them for creating safety corridors for DOD drones and/or HEW usage. Issues came to a head after DOD shot down a highly threatening mylar party balloon, which FAA evidently considered to be a somewhat reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.

Can you share a source for this? It's not in the updates to the NYT article.
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