The abrupt closure of the airspace over El Paso, Texas, has set off "chaos" and "finger-pointing" at the highest levels of President Donald Trump's administration.
The Federal Aviation Agency announced Wednesday the airspace would be closed for 10 days, only to reverse the decision about eight hours later, and reports have since emerged that the shutdown was enacted because Customs and Border Patrol had been testing a high-energy laser at nearby Fort Bliss against suspected foreign drones that turned out to be party balloons.
"Thisset off a scramble across theentire administration," reported CNN's Kevin Liptak. "When theFAA put this restriction inplace on Wednesday, includinghere at the White House, whereofficials told us they were lefttotally in the dark, theyessentially found out about itin real time as it was happening. They had to quickly call the FAAto reverse course, which, ofcourse, they did, but not beforean enormous amount of confusion,worry and frankly, a lot ofembarrassment inside theadministration, and it has ledto this blame game."
"Now youknow, at the White House, theblame is being laid squarely onthe FAA for not alerting them towhat they were planning to do," he continued. "Alot of that blame was beingheaped on the transportationsecretary, Sean Duffy, whoseagency houses the FAA, but we'regetting pushback from otherparts of the administration. Oneofficial put it to us as it'sbaffling that White Houseofficials are upset with Duffyfor protecting the airspace andnot the folks who launched thelaser, and, of course, the laseris this high energycounter-drone laser that the Pentagon has been testing. Theyhad loaned it to Customs and Border Protection, who weretesting it in remote areas thatis eventually what led the FAAto close this airspace."
Officials from the FAA and the Pentagon had been scheduled to meet Feb. 20 to discuss the technology, which poses a potential hazard to civilian aircraft.
"TheFAA wanted assurances that itwouldn't interfere withcommercial aviation, but whenthe Pentagon went ahead andbegan testing it before then,that's when they shut down theairspace," Liptak said. "So a lot of blamegoing around, very complex webof a finger-pointing. I think italso underscores what has becomequite a contentious relationshipbetween the Pentagon and theFAA. It had already really beenon the rocks since that planecrash last year, when an Army Black Hawk helicopter collidedwith an American Airlines flightand left 67 people dead near Ronald Reagan Airport."
"All ofthis of course, leading tofurious reaction from arepresentatives in El Paso," he added. "The Democrat, [Rep.] Veronica Escobar, wroteon social media, quote, 'This wasthe result of incompetence atthe highest levels of theadministration.'"