FAA just announced a 10 day emergency temporary restricted area for a 10 mile radius around El Paso. No flights are permitted from ground level to 18000 feet, grounding all flights to/from the El Paso airport (KELP).
Designed as “national defense airspace”, with “deadly force authorized if aircraft determined to pose a security threat”.
No reason given.
Update: the TFR appears to have been cancelled, effective immediately.
@mattblaze Drug cartel drone activity https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/faa-grounds-all-flights-to-and-from-el-paso-until-feb-20
The paranoid part of me is thinking false flag as he is more desperate for a Epstein distraction
@mattblaze Did Vance go there for a holiday to get away from the boos at the Olympics?
@mattblaze so there was this ... But you don't close the air space for 10 days for an unidentified flying object...
@mattblaze Mrs. Vance had a craving for tacos this morning
I just read that it isn't only El Paso airspace but other US airports as well.
@mattblaze well, this regime can do anything, kidnap you, beat up grandma / no reason given
Should we be looking for a petty, vindicitive reason?
About closed air space in El Paso….
certain Eric Clapton song pops up in my head for no reason.
Although, certain procedure of disposal of evidence and people in Latin American dictatorships also comes to mind.
@mattblaze They just got a new truckload of the good chicken nuggets and they don't want the Coast Guard coming in and devouring them all again.
@mattblaze Also, AFAIK* “National Defense Airspace” isn’t actually a thing that exists in law or regulation.
TFRs do, of course, but that particular designation, along with the specific rules, appears to be made up for this purpose.
It’s perhaps a nitpick—a TFR can basically impose whatever restrictions deemed necessary. But that phrase doesn’t mean anything legally.
It’s extra weird, is what I’m saying.
*as an instructor certificate holder; also worked a bit on airspace data models for FAA
@mattblaze Probably another Trump whim.
@mattblaze is that where they were shipping immigrants? Response to ice?
@mattblaze
Shutting down a major international airport for 10 days is insane. It'll be impacting something in the neighborhood of 100,000 passengers, plus medical flights, etc.
Fort Bliss / Biggs Army Airfield is within the restricted area, which may or may not be related.
This is very unusual. Aside from the disruption- it closes a large metropolitan airport for 10 days- no advance notice was given. So this isn’t for some planned event or operation.
A particularly weird thing about this is that if it were about protecting something on the ground, you would expect there to also be all sorts of things being done on the ground, with local police, etc. But there’s nothing. It’s just the FAA, so far.
Update: TFR appears to have been lifted, effectively immediately.
@mattblaze
The TFR on the New Mexico side is still live, covers 30nm along the border maybe 15nm deep.
You don't mean traffic film remover, I am guessing? Good policy to spell out the acronym on first use. At this point I don't know what this is about.
@mattblaze the 2nd TFR is still in effect
AP reporting that it was a possible “miscommunication” between the FAA and military involving operations at Biggs airfield
There have so far been at least three different explanations given:
- army told FAA it was testing new anti-drone tech, FAA thought possibly unsafe for civil traffic, issued TFR, army then responded with safety assurance
- actual drone incursions detected, military responded, then gave all clear
- FAA initially misunderstood/was misinformed of location of military antidrone testing, thought it was at Biggs airfield (adjacent to El Paso) when it’s actually at other locations near border.
None of these explanations make complete sense (tests are planned in advance, and drone incursions aren’t that uncommon), but all are possible. Or it could be something else.
All this is happening in the context of last year's collision between a military helicopter and a commercial airliner, so one can imagine people at the FAA being inclined to err on the side of overreaction these days.
The contradictory explanations are what bother me the most here. The FAA enjoys a good reputation for being an honest broker when it comes to reporting on aviation incidents, which is critical for its role in improving safety. But here, I get the impression that the government is scrambling to construct the most face-saving or politically useful explanation it can come up with, rather than simply reporting what happened.
We still don’t know what’s happening in El Paso.
It’s been reported that CBP used a laser weapon to shoot down what turned out to be balloons, and that the FAA had originally shut the airspace because they couldn’t be sure these weapons wouldn’t endanger commercial aviation.
But it was also reported that the FAA airspace order was rescinded at the direction of the White House, not because the FAA determined the weapons tests are safe. But it’s not clear if the tests are still continuing.
@mattblaze “Miscommunication" including a post on the official airport instagram account, I guess. Sure. What a time to be alive.
@mattblaze The airfield reported that item V1098, offog, one, came apart under gravitational stress.
A slip of some DJT appointee's botoxed lips.
@mattblaze Well, yes, mis-something, definitely.
Hopefully not a harbinger of things to come.
@mattblaze there’s a 2nd TFR on the border to the west in NM
@markrsmith and another to the east near Fort Hancock, along the border. But these are small and don’t include any major airports. Much more normal.
@aholtzma not the same area.
@mattblaze they’re going to attack drug cartels in Juarez. Same closure as the Caribbean before Venezuela.
@mattblaze - Yeah, this is weird. The airport didn't know why. The city govt didnt know why. Even the FAA's own Special Operations Support Center didnt know why.
The abruptness and lack of coordination - on top of the length of period and complete lockdown even of medical, military, and police (in addition to cargo and passenger) air - is astounding.
https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/670536-el-paso-closed.html#post12035668
“Well given the proximity to Fort Bliss and the Mexican border. It has been suggested it's a precursor to a raid into Ciudad Juarez to snatch or attack a cartel figure.
Closing the airspace would avoid friendly fire incidents.
Unprecedented though. What the Mexican government would make of that scenario is another thing.”
@mattblaze - My gut tells me this is probably being done for some stupid or contrived (or at least blown out of proportion) reason. Whoever (full chain of command such as it is) issued this probably doesnt know or care about the consequences and ramifications of these actions.
But I have no idea.
Hide and watch for the time being, I guess.
@tinker yeah. It’s either an incredibly dumb reason or an incredibly scary reason. Incredibly dumb is more likely than it once was, but we still can’t rule out incredibly scary.
@mattblaze @tinker Trump thinks the Gordie Howe Bridge in Windsor starts in El Paso
@mattblaze @tinker @jianmin My only two guesses verge on the conspiratorial, but these days that could be very likely.
@mattblaze @tinker I bet it's something petty like the airport manager saying mean things about Melanie movie on twitter
@mattblaze Struck me as highly atypical as well. Are you aware of a precedent (beyond 9/11, if even that was)?
Is it too cynical to suggest this is a wag-the-dog on DHS funding?
I just hope it's not an attempt to stave off a new pandemic of some kind.
@joyce @douglevin That wouldn’t make sense. If it were a public health emergency involving the airport, they’d just close the airport, not the airspace around it.
@mattblaze I think the red flag exercise is running at the moment, which I think is in that area of the world
@ben yeah, almost definitely not that. This was sudden and closes a large civil airport.
