How a party balloon sparked a feud between the FAA and Pentagon and shut down a city’s airspace

The sudden and unprecedented closure of El Paso’s airspace on Tuesday stemmed from border officials firing a high-energy laser at what they believed to be a cartel drone, according to reports. But, it turned out to be something considerably more innocuous: a party balloon drifting in the wind.

The Texas desert episode led the Federal Aviation Administration — following a dispute with the Pentagon — to close the city’s airspace for 10 days, a grounding that has not occurred since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CBS News reports.

The ban, however, was quickly lifted on Wednesday morning, when a Trump administration official told The Independent that a Mexican cartel drone that had “breached” U.S. airspace had been neutralized.

The hours-long airspace closure at America’s seventy-third largest airport sparked flight cancellations and outrage from state and local officials.

“I want to be very, very clear that this should’ve never happened,” El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said at a news conference on Wednesday.

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In recent weeks, the Pentagon has ramped up planning for deploying military technology near El Paso’s Fort Bliss to hone drone-disabling tactics, according to CBS News.

Sources familiar with the matter described the technology as a high-energy laser.

Multiple meetings were planned to discuss safety impacts, but defense officials wanted to speed up the process. As a result, Customs and Border Protection officials deployed the laser technology earlier this week after receiving training from the military. They had informed the FAA that the weapon would be used during a 10-day window.

This week, immigration officials fired the laser — without informing the FAA — at what they thought was a cartel drone, according to The New York Times. But, the unmanned object was revealed to be a party balloon. It was shot down, multiple sources said.

When reached by The Independent, a Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment. Representatives for the FAA, CBP and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For years, the U.S. military has been testing high-energy laser weapons to neutralize aircraft in flight, including drones, The Independent previously reported. The Trump administration has said that Mexican cartels use drones to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States.

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Following the operation, the FAA announced on Tuesday evening that all flight operations at El Paso International Airport — located near the U.S.-Mexico border — would be prohibited for 10 days from February 11-21 due to “special security reasons.”

A similar restriction was put in place over a neighboring community across the border in New Mexico.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford made the decision without consulting the White House or the defense officials, according to CBS News. Bedford reportedly said that the restriction would remain in place until the FAA’s disagreement with the Pentagon had been worked out.

The ban spanned a radius of 10 nautical miles and it applied from the ground up to about 18,000 feet. “No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered,” the FAA said, though it noted that Mexican airspace is excluded.

A representative for the airport said the grounding, which impacted “commercial, cargo and general aviation,” had been implemented on short notice.

The medium-sized El Paso airport — which is the 73rd largest in the nation — services over three million people per year. Over 1,000 flights were scheduled during the next 10 days, according to Cirium, an aviation firm, indicating thousands of travelers could have been impacted.

Following the closure, airlines scrambled to respond. United Airlines issued a statement saying that travelers can exchange their tickets for new flights without paying a fee or fare difference. Southwest Airlines said it had “notified affected customers and will share additional information as it becomes available.”

However, things changed just as quickly.

“The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted,” the FAA said in a statement on Wednesday morning. “There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal.”

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A number of state and local officials castigated the federal government for its actions, arguing that its handling of the situation caused unnecessary alarm and inconvenience.

“To be clear: this was the result of incompetence at the highest levels of the administration,” Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, wrote on X on Wednesday. “El Pasoans were rightfully alarmed by how the federal government carried all of this out.”

At a press conference on Wednesday, El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson echoed this sentiment.

“You cannot restrict air space over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership,” he said. “That failure to communicate is unacceptable.”

Before the ban was lifted, New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez posted a video on X, in which he stated that the 10-day grounding of flights would have major repercussions.

“This is going to have a deep economic impact” on the region, “including in southern New Mexico,” Vasquez said.

Multiple officials stressed that they would continue to press for more answers from the Trump administration in the coming days.