The shock shutdown of airspace over El Paso caused chaos among local officials, newly-released text messages have revealed.
Commentary from blindsided staff behind the scenes included the words “crazy”, “wild, “insane,” and “WTF” as they struggled to comprehend what was happening.
The messages and emails, obtained by NOTUS under the Texas Public Information Act and the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, reveal how the mayhem unfolded in real time.
On the evening of February 10, a local FAA air traffic manager, Curtis Dowling, texted Alexander Rao, an operations manager at El Paso International Airport, “with a message he seemingly couldn’t believe.”
The authority’s headquarters, Dowling revealed, had just issued a notice that the airspace over the city would soon be closing.
Rao replied: “What’s this for?”
Dowling attempted to explain: “Security and it’s gonna be until almost 11 days … From 2/11 to 2/21.”
From there, the shutdown spiraled into an unprecedented crisis as air safety officials, airport managers and members of the Trump administration pointed fingers and traded blame amid unconfirmed reports of Mexican cartels, secret military weapons, and, incredulously, a suspected drone incursion that ended up being an errant party balloon.
On the evening of the announcement itself, though, confusion ran high.
Tony Nevarez, the airport’s director of aviation, remarked in a text that it was “insane” after he was informed of the air traffic closure.
Another official texted: “Damn. I’ve called everyone. No one knows nothing.”
With no further information, airport managers scrambled to try to get answers from the TSA and the FAA, the federal agencies that oversee flight safety and security. There was no immediate response.
Before long, the news broke, and panicked staff, still with no clue what was going on, realized: “We’re live on national news now.”
They had no idea what to tell the various commercial and cargo airlines that used the airport, including Delta, Southwest, American and United; on a standard weekday, more than 100 commercial flights arrive at or depart from El Paso’s airport.
Before long, members of Congress were involved, and El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson slammed the closure at a press conference the next morning.
“You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership,” Johnson said at the time. “That failure to communicate is unacceptable.”
In the end, airspace was only closed for eight hours, with the White House forcing the FAA to lift restrictions at 7 a.m. on February 11.
Following the abrupt airspace closure and reopening, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA and Defense Department had “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.”
“The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region,” he wrote on X at the time.
It was later revealed that the incident occurred when officials at Customs and Border Protection, with military officials present, used a new Defense Department anti-drone energy weapon on a flying object that subsequently turned out to be a party balloon, The New York Times reported.
The FAA, which hadn’t been briefed on the technology, shut down the El Paso airspace out of safety concerns, according to the paper.
Mix-ups over the new laser weapon are still causing chaos along the border; last week, it was used to shoot down a drone in Texas, only for it to emerge that the aircraft belonged to CBP.
That error prompted another swift closure of airspace and renewed political criticism, with Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth slamming the Trump administration’s incompetence for causing “chaos in our skies.”
Duckworth, who is the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, renewed calls for independent investigations into the incidents.
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