The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said.
The Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The F.A.A. declined to comment.
According to four people briefed on the situation, Pentagon and F.A.A. officials were set to meet on Feb. 20 to discuss the safety implications of deploying the military’s new anti-drone technology, which was being tested. But the F.A.A.’s urgency intensified after C.B.P. officials deployed the technology.
The F.A.A.’s initial closure announcement late Tuesday, which cited “special security reasons,” barred all aircraft from flying in the area around El Paso below 18,000 for 10 days — until one day after the Feb. 20 meeting had been scheduled to take place.
They did not alert the White House or the Pentagon ahead of time that they were shutting down the airspace, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The move also blindsided El Paso officials.
“I want to be very, very clear that this should’ve never happened,” Mayor Renard Johnson of El Paso said in a news conference Wednesday morning. “You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership.”
“That failure to communicate is unacceptable,” he added.
In the United States, where many officials accept cartel drone incursions as established fact, some wondered why this particular incident would have prompted such an uncommonly sweeping response from the F.A.A.
“There have been drone incursions from Mexico going back to as long as drones existed,” Representative Veronica Escobar, the Texas Democrat representing El Paso in Congress, said at a news conference. “This is not unusual, and there was nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion into the U.S. that I’m aware of.”