Droning on in El Paso

And a win for ICE opponents

The trending news of this week was the abrupt shutdown of the El Paso airport by the FAA. Shutting down flight operations at airport is a very uncommon step, especially an airport the size of El Paso City (by the Rio Grand-eee) that is a regional transportation hub. The revelations about why the shutdown occurred were disturbing for a number of reasons.

As originally implemented, the shutdown encompassed a 10- mile ring around the airport and extended from the surface to 17,000 feet. The airspace was closed to all traffic for 10 days. Seven hours later, it was gone.

Image created by Grok

What followed was a rapidly changing series of excuses. First, the Administration blamed drones operated by Mexican cartels. There have been unauthorized drone operations around airports in Europe that disrupted flight operations, but I’m not aware of similar incidents in the US. Those incidents resulted in flight delays, but nothing close to a 10-day suspension of operations.

Over the last few years, drones have achieved near-ubiquity. Ukraine revolutionized drone warfare in its battle against the Russians, and the autonomous vehicles are now being used for deliveries by Amazon and Chick-fil-a, among others. Camera drones are a common sight at sporting events, including the Olympics. At a conference, I even met a TVA drone pilot who used one of the aircraft to inspect the inside of nuclear reactors.

You might wonder, with the growing number of drones in the air, how novice operators avoid conflicts with larger, manned aircraft. Back in 2017, a drone collided with an army helicopter over Staten Island, but technology has added layers of safety since then. The FAA now requires a pilot certification for small UAS (unmanned aerial system) drones under 55 pounds.

There are two main tracks for remote pilots, the official FAA term for drone flyers. The first is the remote pilot certificate, which requires a training course and a written test. An alternative for hobby flyers is the recreational flight exception, which can be obtained via a free online course that yields a printable certificate.

Drone operators are supposed to stay below 400 above the ground (AGL) and outside of controlled airspace, which can extend all the way down to the surface near airports. There are several mobile apps that include maps with airspace information for remote pilots, and some drones even include a built-in database and control logic that won’t allow them to launch in restricted airspace. Of course, these safeguards could be disregarded or bypassed by malevolent operators.

It is definitely possible that bad actors could use drones aggressively. The cartels have reportedly used them to deliver both explosives and drugs, but there seems to be no reason why the cartels would attack (for lack of a better word) the El Paso airport.

The lack of logic surrounding the claim may be why the story broke down so quickly. Explanation 2.0 was that the military was testing a laser at Fort Bliss. Again, this story fell flat.

The military is used to working with the FAA. There are charted, permanent military operations areas (MOAs), restricted and warning areas where the boys in green go to play with their toys without disrupting civilian traffic. There are also temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) for places where traffic needs to be specially regulated. TFRs are often used for VIP movements, sporting events, or disasters. These areas usually have exceptions for airlines, medical transport, and flights on IFR flight plans, but that was not the case in El Paso.

To top it off, military testing is usually planned in advance, not on the spur of the moment. The slapdash, frantic, shut-it-down-for-10-days didn’t really fit that explanation either.

Cue Explanation 3.0. This time, the explanation is embarrassing enough to ring true.

Per an analysis by The Independent, the army was testing a high-energy laser in the area, and eventually handed the device off to Customs and Border Protection. The CBP saw what they thought was a Mexican cartel drone.

“So, anyway,” as the meme goes, they “started blasting,” without notifying the FAA.

The “drone” turned out to be a balloon, apparently of the party rather than the Chinese spy variety. It isn’t clear how the FAA learned about the CBP’s balloon target practice, but when they did, they shut the airport down. The 10-day duration apparently came from the military’s initial schedule for the testing.

While there is a risk from illicit drone activity, I think the biggest risk is from drones unintentionally blundering into the flight paths of manned aircraft. It’s certainly not impossible that terrorists could launch a drone swarm against airports or other targets, but El Paso would be low on the priority list of such plotters.

What we have in El Paso seems to be a string of miscommunications (or probably more accurately, noncommunications) followed by frantic attempts at CYA. Some amount of secrecy is to be expected when the military is involved, but the El Paso stories seem more akin to CBP and ICE coverups of wrongdoing. The shift in stories is reminiscent of the changing official line regarding Renee Good, Alex Pretti, or any number of beatings, arrests, and detentions over the past year.

The bottom line in El Paso was incompetence and dishonesty. This time, the result was the cancellation of 14 scheduled flights and the rerouting of an unknown number of private and medical flights. El Paso is a frequent customs stop for aircraft entering the US, so the inconvenience was likely worse here than it would have been at many other airports.

No one died this time (as far as we know, but lives could have been endangered by the interruption in air ambulance flights), but the whole matter is emblematic of the lack of professionalism and the cover-up culture that characterizes the Trump Administration.

Drones in the wrong hands can be a serious threat. I’m glad we are developing countermeasures and defenses against drones accidents and attacks, but these devices need to be in the hands of operators who are well-trained and will exercise good judgment. From everything I’ve seen over the past year, that is not a description that applies to Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security.

If there is an upside to the whole mess, it’s that the cost of operating the laser was probably less than scrambling an F-22 Raptor at $70,000 per hour to destroy the balloon with a $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. That was the method used to blow up the alleged Chinese spy balloons* in 2023.

*The US later determined that the balloons were not spying and had probably blown off course. It isn’t clear whether the sensors on board were truly weather instruments or could have been used in intelligence collection.

**More trivia at no extra charge: The call sign of the balloon buster flight was “Frank,” honoring a US WWI ace, Frank Luke, who shot down 14 German observation balloons. The heavily-defended balloons were difficult targets. The F-22s on the mission were part of the 27th Fighter Squadron, a descendant unit of Luke’s 27th Aero Squadron.

DE-ICING Spring is coming early to Minnesota, or at least ICE is leaving. Border Czar Tom Homan said the immigration surge there is ending, and the agents are being withdrawn. It isn’t clear whether the agents will be redeployed elsewhere, but they are on the payroll and they have to do something to justify their existence. I doubt they will be picking up litter like the National Guard. There is a good chance that they will show up again soon in some other blue state or city.

ICE WATCH The DHS claimed that two Minneapolis men provoked an ICE agent to shoot and wound one of them. The government story has shifted (see above) since originally claimed that the two Venezuelans attacked agents with a broom and shovel. Now the DOJ is dropping the charges, which would be unusual if the assault had actually happened.

EXTRA BONUS As another bonus, I’m including artwork created by ChatGPT. I ultimately went with Grok’s offering, but I like this one so much that I decided to add it in.

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