The Federal Aviation Administration’s brief shutdown of El Paso Airport over security concerns raised by the use of the military’s anti-drone laser system was unacceptable, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee said Thursday.

The FAA decided late Tuesday to close a Texas airport for 10 days after the Pentagon vowed to proceed with an anti-drone system without completing a safety review, only to reverse course just eight hours later and lift the closure.

“We have a real coordination problem between (the Defense Department) and the FAA, so we have to address that,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said at the hearing.

The Pentagon has authorized US Customs and Border Protection to use anti-drone lasers in the area, two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

The sudden closure of the nation’s 71st busiest airport, in the city bordering Mexico’s Juarez, grounded air travelers and halted medical evacuation flights. The FAA initially said the closure of the airport, which handles four million passengers a year, was for “special security reasons.” A 10-day shutdown would be an unprecedented action involving a single airport.

Government and airline officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FAA closed the airspace because of concerns that the military’s laser-based anti-drone system could pose a risk to air traffic. The two agencies had planned to discuss the issue on Feb. 20, but the military decided to proceed without FAA approval, the sources said, prompting the FAA to suspend the flights.

Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican chairman of the Commerce Committee, said he wanted a secret briefing to understand what happened.

Original explanation questioned

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, said the shutdown was prompted by a drone incursion by a Mexican drug cartel. However, a drone sighting near an airport would usually lead to a brief pause in traffic rather than a prolonged closure.

Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district covers an area that stretches about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) along the Texas-Mexico border, said cartel drone sightings are common.

“For all of us who live and work along the border, drone incursions by criminal organizations are a daily occurrence. For us, it’s Wednesday,” Gonzales said.

Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security’s counter-drone program, told Congress in July that cartels use drones almost every day to transport drugs across the border and monitor Border Patrol agents.

More than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he said, mostly at night.

Mexican officials led by President Claudia Sheinbaum also expressed doubt on Duffy’s claim on Wednesday.

It was another incident of apparent confusion and miscommunication between the FAA and the Pentagon, following an investigation into last year’s mid-air collision between a commercial jet and a military helicopter near Washington, DC, that killed 67 people.

After that fatal incident, the National Transportation Safety Board said it learned that the FAA and the military had not shared safety information with each other about previous close calls around Reagan National Airport in D.C.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a former military helicopter pilot who serves on committees focused on the Air Force and the armed forces, said the issue Wednesday was the latest example of the “lack of coordination that is endemic in this Trump administration.”

Seven arrivals and seven departures were canceled during the eight-hour wait in El Paso. Some medical evacuation flights also had to be diverted.