Thursday, February 12, 2026
PMT: El Paso Airport mysteries
Yesterday I woke up and saw some alarming news: for "security" reasons, the FAA was closing the El Paso airport for 10 days.
El Paso is a place I know. From 2002-2010, I went there every year to train defense attorneys on the federal sentencing guidelines. I liked it a lot; great food, fascinating people, and mountains nearby. It also was (and is) one of the safest cities in the US, despite having the often-dangerous Juarez just over the border.
I enjoyed fly into El Paso. The airport is the only decent-sized airport for hundreds of miles-- there are a lot of wide-open spaces in West Texas and Southern New Mexico. That's why it seemed so odd that they would close this particular airport so abruptly and for so long.
The closure didn't last long-- later in the day the airport was re-opened at the direction of the White House.
According to the New York Times, here is what happened:
-- Justified or not, there was concern about Mexican drug cartels using drones in the area.
-- The Defense Department lent the Customs and Border Protection agency a military grade drone-destroying laser. No one notified the FAA.
-- Then they used the high-energy laser to destroy a "party balloon" that they thought was a drug cartel drone.
-- After the party balloon was eliminated for good, they closed airspace around the airport until after a meeting between bureaucrats that was scheduled for February 20.
I have so many questions! First, what kind of party balloon was this? I imagine something like Snoopy or a big number 3. Also, why would the destruction of even a very menacing party balloon lead to closing down an airport for ten days-- maybe they could have moved that meeting up? And how hard are the Mexican drug cartels laughing about all of this?
