Well, CNN correspondent Pete Muntean claims this was prompted by imminent military operations after all.
BREAKING: A source briefed by FAA tells me the El Paso flight ban was driven by military operations from Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss. The FAA acted after the Defense Department could not assure civilian flight safety.
(Link to Twitter)
If an invasion of Mexico is in the offing, it may not go much better than the last time.
Throwing random speculation at the wall:
At the moment I could imagine some high-spectacle armored movement into Mexico, maybe occupying some border town for a few days, laughing while Mexico screams about it, and then pulling back at leisure because they don’t really want a major occupation. So that’s my pet theory right now. But I also wouldn’t rule out that they’re shutting down airspace to prevent observation of mobilization of Ft. Bliss assets to somewhere in the Gulf.
One of the speculations that’s getting a bit of traction in that Reddit thread: apparently the admin got a favorable ruling in the 5th circuit regarding indefinitely holding ICE detainees, so there’s incentive for mass transfer of prisoners to this jurisdiction. Airport and airspace closure clears the way for enormous rapid airlift.
I think it’s a (huge) stretch and believe the “imminent attack on target(s) in Mexico” hypothesis is far more plausible, but the above hasn’t yet been mentioned here, so I’m throwin’ it in.
I would bet on “Airstrikes on targets in Mexican territory” too. No land invasion (too much risk of returning body bags, bad optics are Trump’s kryptonite) but airstrikes on alleged “Drug cartel” targets.
We’d be operating from our own bases in the US with airstrikes and the closed area is so small that it really doesn’t make sense to close it in order to conduct airstrikes on Mexico unless those airstrikes were specifically in the city of Juarez and they wanted to clear out the traffic for the strikes. That’d certainly be something, bombing a city that’s basically half-US half-Mexico.
I’m seeing reports that New Orleans is also closing for 5 days.
The latest reports coming out on the Epstein files are so grotesque that this could all be another distraction.
The FAA’s twitter account posted that the airspace is back open. I’d check myself but the FAA’s TFR map seems to a little busy at the moment.
Hell, that might actually be it given how they think. “Secure the border” by bombing and occupying the city and deporting all the “illegals”.
A total disaster of course but that’s never stopped them from doing something before.
I disagree. with the TFR, any plane in the area below 18,000 would be military. A couple of reporters or plane spotters sitting outside a military base could see any low planes, which they obviously need to be for takeoff & landing & conclude that they are military planes even w/o one of the phone apps like FlightAware. What might not get noticed in normal times is going to get more scrutiny now because of this very unusual TFR. Also, planes would still need to pickup detainees from multiple airports around the country & a lot of extra military flights there could be noticed. Screaming, “Hey, don’t look here” is the way to get more eyeballs, not less
My guess is that it’s more a trial of how the USAian public will react to such a move. El Paso was probably chosen due to the high number of potential distractions (aliens, whether extraterrestrial or human), potential invasion of Mexico, limited airstrikes in Juarez, all the other stuff discussed in this thread, etc.
The real motivation is probably to find out how much they can get away with in the event they decide to do something like this again for some other nefarious purpose.
Yeah, like I said, I think it’s pretty unlikely. But in the absence of facts, we might as well catalog the guesses.
And it’s suddenly over?
That seems to support the hypothesis that the reason they did it was to gauge the reaction of the public to such a move, rather than using the shutdown for any kind of actual maneuvers.
This is all so ham-fisted and stupidly executed that I can only assume Hegseth and co. fucked something up again. Probably didn’t provide the right paperwork to the FAA to guarantee air traffic safety around some increased drone patrolling or some military test flights.
So the FAA said, “fine I guess we have to close the airport until the activity is over”. That was blunt enough for DOD to figure out what they should have done in the first place and submit the right paperwork for FAA to lift the NOTAM.
Maybe it’s some super-squirrel operation or a trial balloon, but likely just more incompetence by this administration.
The urge to make guesses that assume the current administration is going to do something evil is reasonable. However it could be something else like a credible threat of an airborne terrorist attack.
In which case the safe assumption is that the administration will respond to the threat with stupidity and incompetence.
Hanlon’s razor applies, I think.
They are evil, sure, but they are also supremely incompetent.
This. Ever since he first got into office, I’ve seen people claim again and again that some apparently stupid move by the Trumpites is secretly some clever chessmaster move…and it consistently turns out to just be as stupid as it looks.
EDIT: Which isn’t to say their intent isn’t evil. Trump is perfectly capable of multitasking, as long as it involves being evil and stupid at the same time.
Right on cue: incompetence.