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Comment: "there was nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion".Federal Aviation Administration officials were forced to close El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday after the Defense Department decided to use new anti-drone technology without giving aviation officials ample time to assess the risks to commercial airlines, according to four people briefed on the situation.
Those accounts, offered on the condition of anonymity because the officials were not authorized to comment publicly, challenge the official explanation from the Trump administration. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, along with representatives for the White House and the Pentagon, insisted on Wednesday that a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels had necessitated a military response, which prompted the F.A.A. to close the airspace.
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States. According to the people briefed on the situation, El Paso’s airspace was shut down when the Defense Department, operating out of Fort Bliss, a nearby Army base, decided to mobilize that new technology over the F.A.A.’s objections.
According to two of the people briefed on the situation, military officials deployed that technology earlier this week against what they thought was a cartel drone, but which turned out to be a party balloon. That operation was carried out without proper coordination with the F.A.A., the people said.
According to the four people briefed on the matter, at the time F.A.A. officials closed the airspace, the agency had not yet completed a safety assessment of the risks the new technology could pose to other aircraft. Two of the people added that F.A.A. officials had warned the Pentagon that if they were not given sufficient time and information to conduct their review, they would have no choice but to shut down the nearby airspace.
Aviation and military officials had planned to meet on Feb. 20 to discuss the potential implications, three of the people said. But when the military decided to act sooner, without moving up that meeting, F.A.A. officials responded by imposing a rare, 10-day closure of the surrounding airspace up to 18,000 feet, out of concern for the safety of other aircraft in the region, citing “special security reasons.”
The F.A.A. did not respond to requests for comment about the circumstances that led to the airspace closure, and a Pentagon spokesman repeated the military’s assertion that it had responded to a drone incursion.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address the dispute, challenged the claim of a failure of communication, saying that the Pentagon and the Department of Transportation had been coordinating with the aviation agency for months and that it had been assured that there was no threat to commercial air travel.
On Wednesday, many officials questioned why a particular drone incursion would have prompted such a sweeping response from the F.A.A. “There have been drone incursions from Mexico going back to as long as drones existed,” Representative Veronica Escobar, the Texas Democrat representing El Paso in Congress, said at a news conference. “This is not unusual, and there was nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion into the U.S. that I’m aware of.”
Comments: "The F.A.A. and the Transportation Department did not offer an explanation as to why the airspace over El Paso was initially closed for 10 days."The F.A.A. and the Transportation Department did not offer an explanation as to why the airspace over El Paso was initially closed for 10 days. That is far longer than closures that are typical for any individual drone incursion, and not a standard length of time for an F.A.A. closure, according to people familiar with the protocols.
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Comments
Apparently, there is a new anti-drone technology using lasers or GPS jamming or electromagnetic radiations that disrupt communications to drones - so, possibly, they could disrupt communications to airplanes too.
Yes, reading between the lines this was a pissing contest between FAA/DOT and Pentagon/DOD. Evidently Hesgeth's people dissed the FAA, and they retaliated. I should have added a note about the cancellation- I'll fix that. Thanks.
Pentagon let Customs and Border Protection fire anti-drone laser near El Paso this week – reports
Comment: The administration is a CIRCUS and Trump is the HEAD CLOWN.
The Trump administration blamed the issue on Mexican drug cartel drones.
Multiple news organizations reported that the Pentagon was testing a new anti-drone defense system.
The lack of communication associated with these events is very troubling.
A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the U.S. military earlier this week shot down what was later determined to be a party balloon near El Paso, Texas, after initially assessing it as a possible foreign drone.
The misidentification eventually led to a total shutdown of airspace around the El Paso airport.
PS
The 1983/84 song’s lyrics describe how 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs by a military general, and the situation quickly escalates into fighter pilots sent to investigate and then bomb the balloons, which agitates neighboring countries, who fire back, eventually leading to a devastating war.
Remember listening to both English and German versions on Q101 (FM 101.1) in Chicago.
Then it should not have been used in the absense of formal testing unless it was an absolute no-shite emergency, which i highly doubt this was. But still, 10 days closure is insane. It's like saying "we're going to shoot intruders, but you can't walk past the crime scene for 10 days."
This crew in DC figures if something sounds good, why not use it....as Donnie said years ago about nuclear weapons, "we've got them, why shouldn't we use them?"
This is a totally reckless crew running the show. Hell, KegBreath already killed off the majority of the nonpartisan Congressionally-mandated office of Operational Test & Evaluation at the Pentagon that does this kind of formal testing.