The skies over El Paso went silent for a few hours on Tuesday, February 11, after some suspicious objects were spotted flying overhead. Terrorism? The work of a dastardly drug cartel? Has China finally attacked the U.S., and has it, for some reason, decided to start with El Paso?
No. If only the reason were so cool. It was because of party balloons. Seriously.
Everything We Know About the El Paso Airspace Shutdown
Late Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration abruptly shut down airspace over El Paso for what was initially announced as a 10-day period, citing “special security reasons.” Flights below 18,000 feet were barred. Medical evacuation helicopters were diverted to New Mexico. Surgical equipment bound for local hospitals didn’t arrive. Passenger, cargo, and even military flights were grounded. City officials say they received almost no warning.
The order was lifted within hours after a White House meeting in which some poor sap had to break the hard news to President Trump that it wasn’t a drug cartel or some vaguely menacing force. No, it was some balloons that one would, for instance, expect to find at a child’s birthday party or perhaps a coworker’s retirement celebration, or maybe even at a gender reveal.
The public explanation from top administration officials was that cartel drones had breached U.S. airspace and were neutralized. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declared on social media that “the threat has been neutralized.”
What he means is that Customs and Border Protection deployed Pentagon-provided anti-drone laser technology without giving the FAA sufficient time to assess risks to civilian aircraft, of which balloons pose very little. Officials thought they were targeting cartel drones. But they were not cartel drones. They were balloons, four of them, of the festive Mylar variety; those shiny metallic ones that instantly let you know they are drifting away from a party and somewhere below is a crying child.
Update: A source familiar with the timeline of events said that the US military did use the laser technology around El Paso this week— to shoot down four mylar balloons. That contributed to the decision by the FAA to shut down local airspace until the aforementioned proper…
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) February 11, 2026
The FAA had not completed a safety review of the laser system and had previously warned the Pentagon that it would shut down nearby airspace if forced to operate without adequate coordination. That’s exactly what happened after the laser was fired.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are now requesting classified briefings amid conflicting accounts of the events from federal agencies. Even some Texas Republicans are wondering why, even if it were drones, would justify such an obscenely overpowered response.
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