As someone else mentioned, there’s some speculation in aviation subreddits that the bounds of the altitude restriction map to the MANPAD capabilities that some cartels are purported to have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1s4zt/comment/o...
My read is that the admin is planning forceful strikes on the cartels within Mexico and is worried about their ability to retaliate by taking down US aircraft across the border.
> cartels
What exactly does this mean? It's hard to take the government seriously when they use language like this. It's like "terrorist": meaningless gibberish that seems to mean "i want to kill this person but don't want to justify why"
Cf hamas, irgc, maduro, random people on boats, etc
I'm pretty sure no one else reading the comment has any trouble understanding what is meant when talking about cartels in Mexico. What exactly is ambiguous to you?
It means organized crime focusing on drugs in this context
My read is most likely some kind of strike on the cartels. There hasn’t seemed to be any significant US military buildup so it’s something they’ll be able to do with a smaller force.
The trapezoid makes me worried about a ground incision there- it extends to the border and would be a cover space for an invasion force. Absolutely bonkers that we are even having this discussion.
The TFR is most likely contingency planning for possible retaliation by cartel drones and the need to keep the airspace clear so they can see (with radar) and shoot down drones and not passenger aircraft.
You are the first person to mention invasion. Kind of bonkers to jump to that conclusion.
Even Cartels know that shooting down civilian aircraft in US airspace would be an escalation that would lead to heavy retaliation. Doesn't seem likely to me.
Unless we start bombing them first. That’s not hard to imagine these days.
Good point. I guess it depends on the force, size, and especially effectiveness of any potential strikes. (i.e. How cornered a cartel might feel and how much flexing an outsized response might stand to gain them.)
Mistakes happen though
Unless the government is planning an attack on the cartel that is so existential that such action wouldn't be considered an escalation but rather a tic for tat.
A trapped animal will generally use all its facilities regardless of its expected effectiveness.
"Maybe, or maybe FL180 is a nice clean line for class A airspace. No need to bother transcontinental flights for a local issue."
Way more plauible
What does that mean sorry?
Would that account for the trapezoidal shape of the one restricted area?
My bet is a showy armored advance though the open terrain near there… it’ll look great on camera! /s
It seems crazy not to just, tell people that if that's what it is. "Hey if you are flying above 18,000 please don't go lower because you could be blown up by a MANPAD."
If the cartels have MANPADS then our intel is already blown by issuing the TFR, so what's the harm in just saying it out loud?
For your first point, on the off chance they have other equipment capable of surpassing MANPADS I’d prefer as a passenger they just fly around.
Second point, it’s not obvious if its for MANPAD reasons or it’s our own operation though we can speculate.
I'm not sure if the person I replied to edited their comment, or I looked at the wrong one, but the one I originally read said the TFR only had the restriction below 18,000 ft. I was addressing it on that basis, which wasn't requiring people flying above that to route around it.
Mass panic? Think of how wildly it would be misrepresented in the media and how disruptive it would be to all air travel in the country. People aren't rational actors and the most sensationalized headline is what ends up spreading
There is a circular restriction around the airport and a trapezoid one next to the city (https://elpasomatters.org/2026/02/11/unexplained-faa-order-s...).
What are the plausible explanations here? I can't think of anything except military action against Mexico (or the cartels inside Mexico). But even that doesn't fit well.
A suspected terror attack could explain the airspace around the airport, but not the weird trapezoid restriction next to the city.
The duration of 10 days is also weird, that seems very long for any kind of emergency situation. And as far as I understand, it is unusual to have no exceptions at all here e.g. for medical transports via helicopter.
The not-totally-crazy ideas from Reddit include:
- it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)
- someone in Mexico is getting kidnapped by Gov
- nuclear tests
I wish those were crazy ideas, but here we are...
A crazy idea would be recovery of a crashed UFO and crew. Other ideas might be drones crossing the border.
> - it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)
Those are done regularly without TFRs. See recent example in Texas:
* https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...
A link to a list of notices at:
I don't know which Reddit thread you're reading (there are many I'm sure) but the one in r/Aviation seems to have a favourite theory that there was a credible threat of someone with MANPADS, which are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles and not some sort of sanitary product.
Apparently they have a ceiling of 18,000ft which is exactly the limit of the restriction in El Paso. Aircraft are allowed fly over if they go above that
That's also just the cutoff for class A airspace. I think people are reading too much into the specific height.
> GPS disruption
Ah, a very plausible explanation!
https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...
The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Isn't it possible that a 10-day TFR could be lifted early once the concern is past? They've probably made it 10 days just to establish an upper bound.
If it's just routine testing, then why couldn't they have announced it earlier to allow companies to plan and/or fly their planes out of the affected area?
> > The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Wait so people in South Texas won't be able to use GPS on the ground either?
Also if the goal is to disrupt the cartels and the people using GPS to know where they are at in the process of crossing the border illegally why is the Army involved in this at all?
The Army has no business in taking part of operations to disrupt cartels and illegal immigration, it's the whole rational behind having 3 letters agency including the evil one that rose to prominence lately
My guess is nuclear test.
Airport circle to secure the transport of the device to the ground adjacent to the test site.
Trapezoid is the test site, wider on the side that is less controllable (border-facing).
Disconnected because two separate teams executed in parallel without informed oversight.
... I don't think they're detonating a nuclear weapon a few miles from a US city in a National Monument 50 miles from a US city...
There are outbreaks of measles, TB, and Covid at the ICE concentration camp in El Paso, so it could be the start of some sort of quarantine.
I don't think you need a NOTAM for that, you could just close the airport directly. And so far this administration hasn't shown itself to be particularly concerned about preventing the spread of infectious diseases like measles.
Without cutting off the roads first? That wouldn't make much sense, right?
People drive too much. Cut off ais travel and only a few care - who drive to Los Cruzes NM to fly. cut off roads and they will in mass break the barricades.
>People drive too much
That doesn't seem like a good argument for instituting a quarantine by blocking air travel but not ground travel. And why block everything including police, cargo and medivac flights for a quarantine?
I’m sorry I have to say I have never seen Las Cruces spelled like that.
Well, air travel spreads things harder and faster.
Sure, but people will just drive to the next closest airport and fly. Quarantine makes no sense as an explanation without accompanying roadblocks.
>Sure, but people will just drive to the next closest airport and fly
Tell me you've never been to west Texas.
The next closest airport is Juarez, it's like 6 miles away, full fledged international airport. It's a few hours walk at worst.
Most plausible comment I found on the internet was the government lost something in that trapezoid and doesn't want anyone to fly over it and find it until it's collected.
Ah, so an alien's contact lens
Roswel is a few hours away by car. Interesting theory but they would lose it there.
Broken Arrow?
Quick, someone call Skinner and get Mulder and Scully on the case!
I honestly assume it's something petty. Like an El Paso air traffic controller was rude to a deportation flight pilot.
The reason is 546865204570737465696e2046696c6573
Nice, I would have fed it through rot13 first, giving:
4775722052636667727661205376797266
its hex ascii for : "The Epstein Files"
Action to close airspace over a major city in the US for security reasons over extended period hasn’t happened since 9/11.
10 day closure for security reasons seems really long.
edit: Same restriction imposed around Santa Teresa, New Mexico. ~15 miles northwest of the El Paso airport.
El Paso is the 6th largest city in Texas so not “major” but certainly large.
25 largest in the United States.
Ft. Bliss is there as well...
Live camera of runway https://app.truelook.cloud/dashboard/581/980/live
Linked from airport website: https://elpasointernationalairport.com/live-cameras/
poor PTZ mount :(
To me the trapezoid suggests something traveling south fell in the area. Narrow at the top, wide at the bottom.
Maybe they dropped a nuke by accident (again)
That looks like a rather flat trapezoid for something that fell from high above.
When something was traveling fast, we can usually tell its trajectory across the map much more accurately than we can tell where along that trajectory it impacted the ground. See: MH370.
According to postings on a couple Reddit discussions, this surprised the El Paso city council among others:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1r7tu/what_does...
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1r1pqnp/10_day_tfr_is...
They probably lost a nuke in the area. Wouldn't be the first time.
Honest question: do you mean it was stolen or it fell out of the plane by accident or something like that?
speculations are it's either related to ICE or drug cartel investigations
The former has a long history of not cooperating with local authorities (also in ways I personally think are sometimes quite malicious but that is off topic). Und normal circumstances ICE would never have the power to lead to a shut down of air space, but with the current administration who knows.
And drug cartel investigations won't cooperate with the city council as an investigation big enough to shut down airspace wouldn't want to risk it leaking by speaking with a city council about it.
But this is a pretty big deal and lets hope this is just about preventing some high ranking drug cartel members from fleeing and not some retaliatory horror story implicitly triggered by the repeated public rejections and denouncements of Trump in recent week. Like if we look at full (and violent) dictatorships(1) you would expect an internet outage to follow and then a lot of people to die.
(1): To be clear no the US is not a full blown violent dictatorship. Even through things are bad, they are not "that" bad. Through IMHO there seem to be people in the government which want to make it exactly that bad.
>To be clear no the US is not a full blown violent dictatorship.
The key word you forgot here is "yet".
>Even through things are bad, they are not "that" bad.
They will get "that" bad if you take on the attitude that things aren't that bad.
>IMHO there seem to be people in the government which want to make it exactly that bad.
We should act accordingly then.
The president has way too much executive power. In my country everything is decided by a cabinet meeting in America one man orders and everyone obeys.
Theoretically a lot of that is true for the US.
It's just that
- both parties have undermined the separation of power, and expanded power of the president repeatedly for many years (e.g. with granting special privileges to the president after 9/11 which where way to broad and not strictly limited to a very short time)
- especially Trump has undermined/dismantled a lot of "checks and balances" mechanisms, including in his previous presidency
- people spreading "legal theories" which are very clearly nonsensical but at least half of the countries press pretending they are credible potentially true. As some are about the constitution you can see this as a direct propaganda attack against the US constitution. With close no consequence, too.
- the current supreme court is IMHO strange. They are not at all impartial and have interpreted laws multiple times in ways which are neither backed by the laws wording nor it's spirit (if you based the spirit on the history due to which the laws where made) with this decision often having been reasoned by what looks a lot like "make pretend everything is normal excuses". But at the same time it hasn't gone fully "we go with whatever Trump/Mega wants" or anything like that. I can't really understand what they are thinking, tbh.
so yes, the president has too much executive power at the moment. Both more then intended with the founding of the US, and in practice more then they even legally have.
Who forms the cabinet though? In a two party system - where one party seems to be built around a personality cult - cabinet can be filled with rubber stampers
My money is on misplaced black budget project craft
Maybe that new F-47 did a trump and fell asleep somewhere in the desert
But they didn't block the desert, only air zone and also only directly above the city not beyond it.
That's kind of what I'm thinking too though my money would be on something like "super secret stealth cruise missile ripped off it's mounting pylon" or control software went crazy rather than an airframe loss.
It's likely be something small enough and with little/no fuel because if it left a big smoking hole they'd find it quick. And it's gotta be something with fairly questionable aerodynamic properties (i.e. damaged) or questionable guidance (i.e not an inadvertently released bomb) otherwise they'd have a very good idea of where it landed.
More likely to be related to the E Files than the X ones
FAA closed another airspace nearby: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2234
- From February 11, 2026 at 0630 UTC (February 10, 2026 at 2330 MST)
- To February 21, 2026 at 0630 UTC (February 20, 2026 at 2330 MST)
My guess is nuclear tests
it's too spontaneous for that
it it's "just" a training exercise or test they could have announced the closing weeks or month before it happening massively reducing the cost fallout from it
not that the current administration has in generally acted with care when it comes to causing huge financial damage to US cities, especially such they don't like
Millions of dollars of stuck planes and cargo. If it was somebody’s fantasy, it sure was an expensive one - but I’m not sure I want to know what it was if it was a real thing
Don't worry. Mexico will pay for it 100 %.
Judging by the previous actions of this administration — Operation Metro Surge 2: Tex-Mex Boogaloo
"Wag The Dog" movie all over again. Sure looks like deflection from the Epstein Files and economy.
Some drug cartel probably bought a SAM and they’re trying to find it.
Duplicate thread of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46972610
Aliens? I want to believe...
Am I hallucinating? Wasn't there just an identical thread on the front page not even an hour ago?
You aren’t, probably was flagged down by not being hacker enough (or more likely for being an open invitation to runaway speculation without any grounding in reality and facts)
This also seems to be an open invitation to runaway speculation.
A lot of the speculation is ridiculous given only a small area has been closed. That is not a prelude to war, for example!
War no, but extraction absolutely.
Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire were closed off the day before Maduro's extraction
You've just described every comment section on HackerNews.
Proper hackers are interested in homeschool propaganda, but not in closed airspace.
Email the mods and they’ll check and merge the dupes :)
Someone's going to be grabbed by the president?
He does that in NYC.
It seems like you linked to a different area on the border to Mexicali?
that link shows the wrong blocked airspace in my case
(it shows that some areas above the border in the desert are blocked off, which makes sense to fight drug smuggling by drones without risking mistaking drones with aircrafts)
but he article is about the new circular zone directly placed over El Paso with El Paso International Airport directly in it's center. (Interestingly because they used a circle it technically covers the Mexican side of the boarder including a part of the airport on their side, but practically FAA can't shut down Mexican airspace so it's misleading).
Also worth noting there is:
- Holloman Air Force Base
- White Sands Missile Range
- Fort Bliss
- Fort Bliss McGregor Range
direct besides the city
so a Military exercise, or deployment of Military (Trump has said he will bomb cartel hideouts in Mexico) can be added to the list of possibilities
The percentage of comments written primarily for the purpose irrational political ranting is frustrating, considering the genuinely interesting nature of the story.
Has anybody checked the pizza/chinese takeout traffic in DC?
Nothing unusual - DOUGHCON 4: https://www.pizzint.watch/
What are the odds that Claudia the President of Mexico has already been extracted now?
Downed UAP recovery?
doesn't need commercial air space lock down, at most private/small low altitude/drone plain lock down
Crashed alien vehicle recovery?
“For special security reasons”. Is a “special military operation “ following? Maybe somebody in Mexico said something mean about the president.
But seriously, is this normal without any explanation? The cost must be enormous.
it's in general highly abnormal
which kinda makes it normal to not have a explanation
because anything abnormal enough to cause something like that is also likely something kept secret until it's done
(Like large scale operations against drug cartel, "special military operation", or a large scale ICE operation which shouldn't be able to cause this but does because the current administration is uh, what it is.)
https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233
This isnt a particularly special thing. It's a catchall rule and given the identical one to the west, it looks like a common military one.
Neither military nor medevac is exempted. This is unusual.
Strike on Mexico incoming.
Anything to distract from Congress getting unredacted access to Trumps good friend's files/emails and naming 6 of their potential clients.
The entire conspiracy theory industry is praying that the closure runs its course for the established 10 days and then everything is re-opened and the reasons behind the closure are not further explained or even better become classified
Not saying this isn't suspect though.