The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a rare notice that grounds flights over El Paso, Texas, for ten days, effectively bringing operations at El Paso International Airport to a halt for the entire period… and no one knows why the FAA has taken this extreme action.
The FAA issued the notice late on Tuesday, giving just three hours’ notice of the flight restrictions that are officially known as a ‘Temporary flight restrictions for Special Security Reasons’ or TFR for short.
The TFR covers a radius of 10 nautical miles from coordinates based within the footprint of the El Paso International Airport (31.80722, -106.37639).
A Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) which provides further details of the airspace closure reads:
“The Federal Aviation Administration classifies the airspace defined in this NOTAM as ‘NTL Defense Airspace’. Pilots who do not adhere to the following procedures may be intercepted, detained, and interviewed by law enforcement/security personnel.”
The restrictions came into effect at 11:30 pm (MST) on February 10 and are not due to be lifted until 11:30 pm (MST) on February 21. Given the proximity of El Paso to the Mexican border, the NOTAM only applies to US airspace, even though the radius of the restrictions crosses the border.
The restrictions appear to have caught the airport and local officials off guard, with the FAA not providing any prior notice before issuing the flight restrictions.
Some airlines were still operating flights to El Paso in the hours leading up to the restrictions taking effect, and have now been left with aircraft stranded on the ground.
One of these airlines is Southwest Airlines, which operated a flight to El Paso shortly before the NOTAM took effect. An interaction between the air traffic controller and the pilots of the Southwest Boeing 737 has since gone viral, after they were informed of the lengthy airport closure.
“Just be advised that there’s a TFR going into effect, uh, at 0630 (UTC) for the next 10 days, we’re stopped, all ground stopped,” the tower controller told the pilots of Southwest flight WN-1249, which had just arrived from Houston.
Perhaps thinking they had misheard the tower controller, one of the pilots then responded: “Okay, ground stop 0630, for how long?”
- Air traffic controller: “Ten days.”
- Pilot: “So the airport’s totally closed?”
- Air traffic controller: “Apparently… we just got informed about 30 minutes ago.
- Pilot: “So for ten days you guys are not open.”
- Air traffic controller: “Well, we’ll be here, but no air traffic.”
It perhaps goes without saying that this type of flight restriction is highly unusual and, unlike typical NOTAMs that restrict flight movements, there are no exceptions for law enforcement or medical flights.
While the FAA has yet to provide further details on why this TFR has been issued, there is plenty of speculation that there could be some of operation taking place at or near the Mexican border.
Further information is expected from local officials in the coming hours, although Chris Canales, a member of the El Paso City Council, has already taken to Reddit to confirm that the NOTAM is genuine, writing:
“Hi y’all. This is real, but reason at all to panic. We’re all trying to work out why this crazy NOTAM was issued by the FAA. What I know so far (as of 12:56 AM local time Wednesday):
• It isn’t a typo or an error. FAA issued this NOTAM intentionally as written.
• Nobody local got advance notice — neither civilian nor military leadership.
• Military does not have carte blanche exemption. Army seems to be fretting about their flights tomorrow just as much as everyone else.
• Local air traffic controllers didn’t get advance notice.
• Albuquerque Center (regional air traffic controllers) also did not get advance notice.”
A spokesperson for the El Paso International Airport has advised travelers to contact their airlines to get the most up-to-date flight status information, although it looks as if there could be some significant flight disruption in the days ahead.
