{"id":214970,"date":"2026-02-18T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/watch-the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:05:12","slug":"watch-the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/watch-the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.wired.com\/video\/watch\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-18 11:27:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.wired.com<\/a><\/p>\n

[Reporter] Last week, the US<\/p>\n

unexpectedly shut down airspace over El Paso, Texas<\/p>\n

and parts of New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The closure was supposed to last 10 days,<\/p>\n

but ended up lasting just eight hours.<\/p>\n

Now the episode is raising serious questions<\/p>\n

about America’s anti-drone defenses.<\/p>\n

As low cost drones become more worldwide,<\/p>\n

security experts have repeatedly warneed<\/p>\n

that destructive drone attacks are inevitable.<\/p>\n

But stopping them isn’t simple.<\/p>\n

Jamming signals or shooting drones down can be dangerous,<\/p>\n

especially in populated areas<\/p>\n

where civilian aircraft are flying overhead.<\/p>\n

In the case of the El Paso incident,<\/p>\n

the Trump administration initially said the airspace closure<\/p>\n

was due to possible Mexican cartel drone activity.<\/p>\n

However, reporting from The New York Times and others<\/p>\n

revealed that customs and border protection<\/p>\n

had deployed a Pentagon provided anti-drone laser weapon<\/p>\n

in the area<\/p>\n

despite the Federal Aviation Administration’s concerns<\/p>\n

about potential dangers to civilian aircraft.<\/p>\n

A cybersecurity expert told WIRED that the FAA’s move<\/p>\n

to shut down airspace was likely precautionary,<\/p>\n

and that the original 10-day window suggests the FAA<\/p>\n

may not have been fully informed<\/p>\n

about how long the laser would be in use.<\/p>\n

According to Reuters, the system used was called LOCUST,<\/p>\n

A 20-kilowatt directed energy weapon<\/p>\n

designed to take down small drones,<\/p>\n

which reportedly shot down what turned out to be,<\/p>\n

well, a party balloon.<\/p>\n

A White House official told The Hill<\/p>\n

that the FAA made the closure decision<\/p>\n

without notifying the White House or Pentagon,<\/p>\n

and insisted civilian aircraft were never in danger.<\/p>\n

But members of Congress are now demanding<\/p>\n

a detailed classified briefing,<\/p>\n

asking what went wrong and where communication broke down.<\/p>\n

Pilots meanwhile say the episode was deeply unsettling,<\/p>\n

as one told WIRED,<\/p>\n

I do not want to be stuck anywhere for 10 days<\/p>\n

or get hit by a laser.<\/p>\n

There is currently no procedure for that.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dwgyu36up6iuz.cloudfront.net\/heru80fdn\/image\/upload\/c_fill,d_placeholder_wired.png,fl_progressive,g_face,h_1080,q_80,w_1920\/v1771431640\/wired_the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-214970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214972,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214970\/revisions\/214972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}