The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued an urgent alert to airlines, prohibiting them from flying over Venezuela after reported overnight strikes by the U.S. military in the country’s capital, Caracas, led to President Trump declaring that President Nicolás Maduro and his wife had been captured.
FAA issues emergency NOTAM after overnight strikes
Despite a buildup of U.S. military assets in the Caribbean and threats by President Trump against the Maduro regime, until now, airlines have only been advised not to use the airspace over Venezuela.
That all changed in the aftermath of the reported early morning attack on Saturday in Caracas, when the FAA rushed to issue an emergency Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), prohibiting U.S. commercial airlines from using any of the airspace in what is known as the Maiquetia Flight Information Region (FIR).
The Maiquetia FIR, which also goes by the code SVZM, spans 1,204,815 square kilometres and covers all of Venezuela, as well as its territorial waters.
The emergency NOTAM reads:
SECURITY...UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PROHIBITION FOR POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS SITUATION IN THE MAIQUETIA FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION (SVZM).
THOSE PERSONS DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPH A (APPLICABILITY) BELOW ARE PROHIBITED FROM OPERATING AT ALL ALTITUDES IN THE MAIQUETIA FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION, DUE TO SAFETY-OF-FLIGHT RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH ONGOING MILITARY ACTIVITY.
A. APPLICABILITY. THIS NOTAM APPLIES TO: ALL U.S. AIR CARRIERS AND COMMERCIAL OPERATORS; ALL PERSONS EXERCISING THE PRIVILEGES OF AN AIRMAN CERTIFICATE ISSUED BY THE FAA, EXCEPT SUCH PERSONS OPERATING U.S.-REGISTERED AIRCRAFT FOR A FOREIGN AIR CARRIER; AND ALL OPERATORS OF CIVIL AIRCRAFT REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES, EXCEPT WHEN THE OPERATOR OF SUCH AIRCRAFT IS A FOREIGN AIR CARRIER. THIS NOTAM DOES NOT APPLY TO U.S. MILITARY AND STATE AIRCRAFT.
The NOTAM was put in place at 6:00 am UTC (1 am EST) and is currently due to end at midnight EST on January 4.
President Trump had told airlines they should consider airspace closed
In mid-November, the FAA issued a NOTAM that advised airlines to avoid using Venezuelan airspace until further notice, although at the time the FAA issued the notice, all U.S. carriers had already voluntarily stopped using the Maiquetia FIR.
Just over a week later, President Trump took to his Truth Social platform to declare that the airspace over Venezuela should be considered closed.
In the short message, Trump wrote: In a short message, Trump wrote: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Two near misses between military aircraft and passenger aircraft
With the buildup of U.S. military forces close to Venezuela, there have been two reported potentially catastrophic near-misses between ‘invisible’ U.S. Air Force refueling aircraft and passenger planes close to the airspace of Venezuela.
In both cases, the U.S. Air Force aircraft was flying without its transponder on and was therefore hidden from air traffic control radar screens. Passenger aircraft had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with the refueling tanker after visually spotting the plane in their flight path.
The first incident involved a packed JetBlue Airbus A320, which was flying between Curaçao and New York JFK on December 12, 2025. The JetBlue plane was in its initial ascent to cruising altitude when the pilots suddenly spotted the U.S Air Force aircraft in their flight path above them.
The pilots had to stop their climb to avoid a collision with the military jet.
A day later, the pilots of a private passenger jet flying from the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba to Miami reported to air traffic control that they had just narrowly avoided colliding with a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker as they were in their initial climb.
“They were really close,” one of the pilots reported to air traffic control, in audio first obtained by CNN through the LiveATC service.
To give a sense of just how close the two planes got, the pilots were able to identify the aircraft type, saying: “It was big, maybe a [Boeing] 777 or a 767.”
The incident occurred as the private jet was at around 26,000 feet. The pilots noticed the invisible military jet in their flight path and had to stop their climb to avoid a collision.
Foreign airlines ground flights to Venezuela
Following the FAA’s first NOTAM urging airlines not to use Venezuelan airspace, a slew of foreign carriers also decided to ground their regularly scheduled flights to Caracas.
In response, the Maduro regime threatened to revoke the flying licenses of the airlines involved unless they resumed flights within 48 hours. The airlines did not, however, react to the threat and flights have been suspended since mid-November.
The airlines involved included a bunch of Spanish airlines such as Iberia, PlusUltra, and Air Europa, as well as TAP Air Portugal, Brazilian carrier GOL, Avianca, and Turkish Airlines.
