Latest / The Daily Article / Why did the government shut down El Paso’s airport?

Transcript

Why did the government shut down El Paso’s airport? · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Friday, February the 13th, 2026, and this is Dinnison Forum's Daily Article Club cast.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome!
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm nearator Chris Elkins, voicing today's Daily Article, written by our Senior Editor for Theology Dr. Ryan Dinnison.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The El Paso Airport was shut down late Tuesday night after the Customs and Border Protection Agency fired an anti-drone laser at a flying object near the border.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, ordered all flights grounded and closed the airspace up to 18,000 feet for a period of 10 days in response.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: or at least that was the plan until the FAA reversed course 8 hours later and reopened everything.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a strange event and a good bit of digital ink has been spilled in the time since attempting to get to the bottom of what caused the shutdown.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: As of now, here's what we know.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The DOD, the Department of Defense, has been testing new anti-drone technology at Fort Bliss, which sits just outside of El Paso, Texas.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The DOD failed to inform the FAA that it would use this technology, a high-powered laser, creating a problem as anti-drone weapons could potentially affect commercial aircraft that fly in and out of El Paso, or at least that was the fear.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: After the laser was used to target what transportation secretary Sean Duffy described as a cartel drone incursion into American airspace, other reports say it was actually just a party balloon.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The FAA shut down the airport for 10 days.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: The 10 day shutdown appears quite excessive, until you consider that the Pentagon and FAA officials were set to meet on February 20th,
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: To discuss the safety implications of testing those weapons so close to a commercial airport, the Pentagon had previously told the FAA about the lasers and how they planned to use them, but reports indicate the FAA did not receive enough information to be comfortable keeping the airspace open.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, given those details, what are we to make of their decision and are we likely to see further shutdowns in the future?
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The speed at which the FAA removed the restrictions coupled with the specific time frame of the initial closure makes it sound as though the shutdown was more to get the DOD's attention than because they truly feared for the safety of the aircraft flying in and out of El Paso.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The FAA neglected to tell either the White House or the
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: further points to safety being a secondary concern.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, the problem seems to be more about competition between the agencies and a general lack of communication, something both the FAA and the DOD have struggled to do well in recent months.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Still, solving the drone problem is important.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Mexican President Claudia Schijnbaum claimed that her administration had seen no evidence of drone activity along the border, the U.S. has told a very different story for quite a while now.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Steven Willoughby, the deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security claimed last July that hostile forces had flown more than 27,000 drones
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: within 500 meters of the border, just over a six-month period.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Norad echoed those findings, claiming that thousands of drone encounters between the U.S. and Mexico happen every month.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while these drones have not been used to attack Americans directly, U.S. officials have seized thousands of pounds of drugs carried by drones in recent years.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Moreover, the cartels have started using drones to drop bombs at times carrying as much as 50 kilograms of explosives on rival cartels.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would be a relatively simple transition to begin targeting Americans in the same way.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of that to say, while the shutdown at the El Paso Airport is unlikely to happen again, and appears to have been more due to petty squabbling than a genuine threat, it would
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: When uncertainty leads us to jump to conclusions that turn out to be false, it can be easy to go too far in the opposite direction and downplay the reality of the situation rather than confront the aspects we got wrong.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this case, one aspect of that reality is that the DOD has lasers that can shoot down drones and they're openly testing them on the Texas border.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Given the increasing likelihood that the U.S. will provoke an attack from Iran in the coming weeks, anti-drone technology could prove essential to the defense of our military forces in short order, moreover, anything that helps to keep drugs out of the country is likely to be beneficial as well.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are those benefits worth the risk of potentially downing civilian or military aircraft in the process?
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely not, but that's why greater communication is a far better solution than a full cessation of the tests.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: A second reality worth considering is that the drones cartels routinely send across the
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it would be great to have a more reliable way to accomplish that end.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, how you go about achieving that goal is important, but it's still a goal worth pursuing.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what is true of the situation in El Paso is often just as true in our lives as well.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pride is often one of the greatest impediments to growing in our walk with the Lord because it can keep us from recognizing and learning from our mistakes.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when that happens, it's easy to find ourselves and able to see beyond the need to be right.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most consequential themes throughout the Gospels is that the people who understood Jesus best and most readily accepted him as their Lord were those who also recognized the gravity of their sin and as a result, the magnitude of his grace.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: By contrast, many of the religious leaders were unwilling to accept him as the Messiah, because they refused to accept the reality that they two were sinners in need of a Savior.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Mark 12 verses 1 through 12, we learned that even when the religious leaders recognized that Jesus' parables and teachings targeted their sin, they doubled down on the idea that he was the problem.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's easy to read those passages about the religious leaders and offer a quick condemnation of their response to the Lord.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reality is that you and I are not always that much better at accepting the Lord's accountability.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Think back to the last time God confronted you with your mistakes.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was your first response to get defensive and try to explain away your sin or were you able to receive the Lord's correction and make whatever changes he commanded?
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: This side of heaven, I'm not sure if we'll ever get that choice right 100% of the time, but every day is likely to give us the chance to try again.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: What will you do with that chance today?