(Houston) Drones belonging to Mexican drug cartels entered US airspace on Wednesday, but were neutralized by the military, the incident causing a suspension of air traffic in El Paso, near Mexico, according to US authorities.
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Flights to or from El Paso International Airport, Texas, were interrupted for a few hours for “security reasons” before being authorized again, with authorities judging that there was no longer any danger.
The affair comes against a backdrop of tensions between Washington and Mexico, linked to drug trafficking and trade disputes.
The Civil Aviation Regulator (FAA) and the Department of Defense “responded quickly to deal with a cartel drone incursion,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X. “The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial traffic in the area. »
A US official told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that drones belonging to Mexican drug cartels had entered US airspace.
The Pentagon has “taken measures to put drones out of use,” added this source, without specifying how.
For her part, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that her government had opened an investigation, adding that she had “no information regarding the use of drones at the border.”
Restrictions
At night local time, the FAA declared on its website that “no pilot (was) authorized to fly an aircraft in the areas affected by this notice”.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS
Activity resumes at the El Paso airport.
The airspace restriction, which also targeted the neighboring town of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, affected both cargo and commercial flights. She was lifted almost eight hours later.
The authorities of this Mexican border town have suggested that they had not been consulted.
“Based on the information that my office and I have been able to gather (…), there is no immediate threat to the community in the surrounding areas,” Veronica Escobar, who represents the city in Congress, wrote on X shortly before the suspension of this measure.
“No one in the local government or the local military base was given more than a few minutes’ notice, nor was the mayor,” the Wall Street Journal local elected official Chris Canales. “We’ve never seen anything this radical. »
In January, after destroying maritime vessels suspected of transporting drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which left more than 100 people dead, Donald Trump announced that the United States would carry out “ground strikes” against the cartels.
“The cartels run Mexico. It’s very, very sad to see and watch what happened in this country,” added the American president on the Fox News channel.
El Paso Airport, which welcomed 3.49 million passengers in the first 11 months of 2025, is served by major U.S. airlines.
