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FAA’s abrupt closure of airspace over and around El Paso Airport in Texas cast a spotlight on the U.S. military’s apparent disregard for the rules that maintain the safety of America’s commercial airspace.
FAA and its controllers had kept the nation’s complex air traffic management (ATM) system safe for decades despite antiquated equipment and a shortage of controllers. But the deadly mid-air collision between a U.S. Army helicopter and a PSA Airlines regional jet, operating as American Eagle, on final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in January 2025 ended the safe run.
An NTSB investigation concluded the accident was caused by multiple factors, including FAA’s placement of a helicopter route close to a DCA approach path. Until the crash, in which 67 people died, it was not generally known that army helicopters regularly crisscrossed the busy airport’s near-airspace for training missions, or that the US Department of Defense (DOD) did not inform FAA or the Department of Transportation (DOT) of the frequency of near incursions with airliners around DCA.
The good news is that DOT Secretary Sean Duffy last year launched a massive ATM modernization program and is fronting that campaign with full support from FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, who has called it a “must do.”
The bad news is that what happened at El Paso in mid-February is far from clear, but initial reports suggest a shocking, maybe illegal, violation of FAA rules by DOD and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which runs the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that operates US airport security and screening.
The initial order from FAA was for airspace over the airport to be closed to commercial flights for 10 days. Federal officials blamed a “cartel drone incursion”; in other words, unmanned aerial system (UAS) vehicles, or drones, were operating illegally in the area, probably from across the border in Mexico for drug-transport purposes.
But then the airspace closure was lifted less than 12 hours later. A well-researched article in the New York Times attributed the cause of the shutdown to unauthorized testing of a counter-UAS laser weapon loaned to DHS immigration agents by DOD, which has been pushing FAA to permit use of this type of weapon within commercial airspace.
FAA has been slow to test, approve and certify any form of counter-UAS system, not only lasers, because they can be dangerous to airliners. It appears that DOD lost patience and provided the weapon to DHS agents for an unauthorized test near El Paso (apparently shooting down a metallic party balloon, not a drone).
If proven to be the case, the cavalier DOD action in El Paso shows a distinct disregard and disrespect for FAA and the laws that are responsible for the safe operations of airliners within US airspace.
Further, a bipartisan bill known as the ROTOR Act passed the Senate unanimously in December and would have required aircraft in commercial airspace to carry ADS-B In tracking technology that experts believe would have prevented the Reagan collision. But the House narrowly failed to pass the bill in February after DOD, citing security and cost concerns, withdrew its support. In other words, the US military rejected potential legislation that would likely have saved the lives of its own helicopter pilots.
Another bipartisan bill called the ALERT Act has been proposed to improve US airspace safety. Among its calls are a requirement for closer coordination between DOD and FAA on collision-avoidance systems as well as the strengthening of helicopter safety management systems in shared civilian-military airspace.
The Air Line Pilots Association Int’l supports that bill and is working to get an ADS-B In requirement included. Those are the right calls. But they’ll only work if DOD leaders support new airspace safety regulation, respect FAA and abide by the rules.
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