The El Paso no-fly debacle is just the beginning of the drone defense chaos

Shocking but A brief closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, and parts of New Mexico last week raised concern among pilots and the broader public about the state of U.S. anti-drone defenses.

As low-cost drone equipment spreads around the world, analysts have repeatedly warned that devastating drone attacks are inevitable. However, developing smart and safe countermeasures is difficult, since things like jamming or trying to shoot down a drone are difficult — or even impossible — to carry out safely in populated areas, let alone densely populated cities.

In the case of the El Paso incident, the FAA originally scheduled the airspace closure for 10 days, but eventually lifted it after eight hours. The Trump administration initially said the move was linked to a possible drone incursion by a Mexican drug cartel, but the New York Times and others reported it was prompted by FAA concerns that Customs and Border Protection officials were using an anti-drone laser weapon provided by the Pentagon in the area despite questions about potential risks to civilian aircraft.

CBP reportedly used a laser defense tool to bring down what turned out to be a celebration balloon.

“The FAA probably did something very smart by issuing the temporary flight restriction,” says Tara Wheeler, chief security officer at cybersecurity consultancy TPO Group. “The initial length of the TFR of 10 days makes it appear as if the FAA has not been provided with information about how long the laser will be in use. The FAA does not want to close the airspace for longer than it has to.”

The FAA, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.

An FAA official made the decision to close the airspace without notifying the White House, the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security, a White House official told The Hill on Thursday.

“The War Department and the Department of Transportation have been working together for months regarding drone incursions. Last night’s action to disable the cartel’s drones was not a spontaneous act,” the official told The Hill in a statement. “At no time during the operation to disable the cartel’s drones were civilian aircraft at risk as a result of the methods used by Dow to disable the drones.”

Also on Thursday, U.S. Representatives Veronica Escobar of Texas and Gaby Vazquez of New Mexico, along with New Mexico Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to request a classified briefing about the incident.

The lawmakers wrote that they want representatives from each agency “to talk about the roles they played, acknowledge where failed communication occurred, and share the steps they are taking to ensure a future crisis of this type does not occur again.”

The laser tool used in the situation was a “LOCUST” anti-drone weapon system produced by defense company AeroVironment (AV), according to a Reuters report. The LOCUST system is a 20-kilowatt laser directed energy weapon, a relatively low-power tool designed for use in eliminating small drones. (AV acquired LOCUST creator BlueHalo in November 2024.)

“The recent proliferation of cheap, readily available drones has shifted the focus to short-range air defense, where high-energy lasers and microwaves offer a potential game-changing advantage,” an Army report on laser weapons testing said in June.

AV delivered two sets of LOCUST modules to the US Army in September and December as part of the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) Prototyping Project – one of a few “directed energy efforts” undertaken by the Army’s Directed Energy Prototyping Office in 2025.