Fly the Friendly Skies of El Paso

We had a situation in El Paso Tuesday  this week – seems one or more drug cartel drones intruded into our air space, causing the FAA to call a ten DAY closure over El Paso.

The El Paso International Airport is located less than 10 miles from Biggs Army Airfield on Fort Bliss.

Leadership at the installation remained in the dark about the decision to shut down the air space around the base and were not informed when the restrictions were lifted, according to a defense official.

Restrictions were lifted, as noted above, within a few hours after some of our finest at Ft. Bliss took said drone/s out of commission. The method was not specified.They moved the duckhunter air defense artillery school years ago, but then, the Ft. Bliss Rod and Gun Club isn’t that far away and I’m sure if they asked for volunteers to yell “Pull!” they would have attracted a crowd.

Love that “located less than 10 miles” line…as anyone who has ever been stationed at Ft. Bliss knows, the two airfields miss bumping up into each other by maybe a couple of miles on a good day.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a post on X, said the Department of Defense “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” though he did not specify how many unmanned systems were involved.

“The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region,” he wrote, adding, “Normal flights are resuming.”

On Tuesday, the FAA announced that it would ground flights — including commercial, cargo and general aviation — in and out of the airport until Feb. 21 due to “special security reasons.” That decision was lifted hours later.

One can only assume that cartel ownership was established when instead of vanishing in a puff of orange powder the way God intended clay pigeons to do, there was a large white cloud and anguished cries of “Ay Caramba!”… nah, I’m kidding. Just suffering the aftereffects of that white cloud…  Be interesting to know how they took the drone/s down… for that matter, how many there were so I could quit using this silly slash/s.

One would think the only people who could get upset about this were people who make money off cartel shipments. Purely coincidentally, by the way:

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents the El Paso area, called the move “unprecedented.”

“The highly consequential decision by the FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and resulted in significant concern in the community,” Escobar said in a statement. “There was no advance notice provided to my office, the City of El Paso, or anyone involved in airport operations.”  Military Times

Guess she thinks the cartels should publish a schedule?

A tip of the old Hatlo hat to Jeff LPH for the Military Times link.

Think you last flight sucked?

A guy flying out of LAX to Houston and on to Managua seems to have been directed to the wrong plane, and after six hours of a supposedly 3-hour flight, found out he was on a flight to Japan. United seems to think they were responsible – apparently they comped two days at a hotel in Japan and his fare to get him to the right destination. (Houston used to be really bad for this – they would scan your pass, send you down an escalator to where an agent would direct you right or left to your proper flight – maybe. Twice in the ’90s I almost wound up flying to Mexico instead of El Paso.)  Daily Mail

Oh, and it could be worse – there is a permanent desk at the Wien (Vienna) airport to handle passengers who mistakenly booked their tickets to the wrong country. Think about it.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Border, Society