FAA closes El Paso airspace for 10 days over security concerns
Source: CNN US
Updated Feb 11, 2026, 4:19 AM ET
PUBLISHED Feb 11, 2026, 3:51 AM ET
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary flight restriction immediately halting all flights to and from El Paso International Airport in Texas and an area of southern New Mexico for 10 days.
According to the FAA’s website, the pause over El Paso and Santa Teresa, New Mexico, is due to “special security reasons.”
El Paso International Airport, which issued a notice late Tuesday, said all commercial, cargo and general aviation flights would be grounded until February 20.
The FAA issued the restriction “on short notice” and airport staff has reached out to the agency for further guidance, the airport said in another statement to CNN affiliate KFOX.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/us/faa-el-paso-texas-flight-restrictions-hnk
This stinks to high hell. Sounds like a "test dry run".
= new reply since forum marked as read
The Army will conduct overnight GPS jamming testing across a huge swath of central Texas for most of February. Although such interference testing is relatively common, particularly in the Southwest, the scope and potential impact of this one is unusual. The agency says that between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. local time for two weeks (Feb. 5-12, Feb. 15-22) and on Feb.2, from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. Feb.13 and 14, and from 2:01 a.m. and 5 a.m. from Feb. 23-27, a 600-mile diameter circle of airspace (at 25,000 feet) will have GPS disruptions affecting WAAS, GBAS, and ADS-B. The circle is centered on Fort Hood, which is about 60 miles north of Austin. The test area covers Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City and may result in “unreliable or unavailable GPS signals.”
The agency says NOTAMs will be issued 24 hours before the tests but they are subject to change with little or no notice. Pilots who notice issues with their GPS-reliant avionics are encouraged to report anomalies in accordance with the AIM paragraphs 1-1-13 and 5-3-3. The testing won’t just affect aviation. At the surface, it has the potential to screw up cars, phones, tablets, watches, and anything else that uses GPS in a circle more than 190 miles across. Apparently not all devices will be affected. Here’s the FAA advisory:
https://avbrief.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/FTHDTX_26-04_GPS_Flight_Advisory_Revision_1.pdf
https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-of-texas/
Maybe they plan to use the El Paso airport to jam Mexico's airwaves?
… is my guess. Ukraine war has shown that a new generation of warfare has emerged, and perhaps testing of drone capabilities and/or ways to thwart drones is being examined
