Trump administration briefly closes Texas airport, blames Mexican cartel drone incursion

A Mexican cartel drone incursion prompted an hours-long closure of airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas that was lifted on Wednesday morning, the Trump administration said.

Just hours earlier, the Federal Aviation Administration had announced a 10-day closure grounding all flights to and from the airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defence Department "acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralised and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region". He said normal flights were resuming on Wednesday morning, but did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.

The shutdown "for special security reasons" had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area. Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office referred questions to the FAA.

Steven Willoughby, the deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told lawmakers in July that nearly every day cartels are using drones to try to bring drugs across the US-Mexico border and surveil Border Patrol agents.

More than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 metres (1,600 feet) of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he testified, most flying late at night. Homeland Security has said agents have seized thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl and other drugs in recent years that cartels were trying to fly across the border using drones.