Officials on Wednesday offered conflicting explanations for a temporary closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, after the Federal Aviation Administration rescinded an order issued hours earlier to ground flights for 10 days.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace, prompting the temporary closure of airspace over El Paso.

Another person familiar with the situation had described the cause of the shutdown as a test of antidrone technology. It is unclear if the closure was directly related to the presence of drones or how the technology was deployed.

Initially, the agency cited “special security reasons” late Tuesday night, halting all flights to and from El Paso International Airport for 10 days and isolating a major metropolitan area from air travel. The closure, which appeared to surprise state and local officials, went into effect at 11:30 p.m. local time Tuesday and was lifted a little before 7 a.m. Wednesday.

“There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the agency said on social media. “All flights will resume as normal.”

Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, pushed back on the drone explanation given by Trump administration officials, saying at a news conference it was “not the information that we in Congress have been told.”

She added: “There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly. The information coming from the administration does not add up.”

The shutdown took many local officials by surprise. When reached by phone early Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat who represents San Antonio, said he did not know more about the closure. Vincent Perez, a Texas state representative from El Paso, was similarly unsure.

“I have never heard of an American airspace being shut down for 10 days, absent a major emergency,” Perez said.

The airport said in a statement that the restriction had been issued “on short notice.”

Here’s What Else to Know:

— Counter-drone program: In July, Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Homeland Security Department, testified before Congress and asked lawmakers to continue the program. He said that 27,000 drones had flown within 500 meters of the border over six months in 2024, piloted by organizations hostile to law enforcement. He did not go into detail on the nature of the antidrone technology the DHS is testing.

— Airport: The airport in El Paso, the 23rd-most populous city in the nation according to the 2020 census, serves a vast swath of western Texas and eastern New Mexico and offers direct flights to hubs across the southwestern United States, as well as to cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle. The nearest major U.S. airport is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, about 270 miles away.

— Disrupted travel: Alex Torres, 42, was among the travelers who arrived at the airport unaware that flights had been grounded. Torres, who was expecting to fly to New York for business, said she spoke with an American Airlines representative on the phone who had yet to hear the news. “They didn’t know anything about the airport being closed,” she said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By John Yoon, Edgar Sandoval, Reyes Mata III and Karoun Demirjian/Reyes Mata III
c. 2026 The New York Times Company