The laser fired. The target dropped. And then came the awkward part.
Last Thursday, a U.S. military unit operating near Fort Hancock, Texas — about 50 miles southeast of El Paso — used a counter-drone laser against what it described as a “seemingly threatening” unmanned aircraft.
Turns out, the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection.
That’s right. We shot down our own.
The incident forced the FAA to close additional airspace around the area. Under the law, the military must formally notify the FAA any time it uses counter-drone action inside U.S. airspace. That’s not optional. It’s aviation 101.
This was the second laser incident in two weeks.
Two weeks earlier, near Fort Bliss, CBP fired its own anti-drone laser. Nothing was hit, but the FAA shut down air traffic at El Paso International Airport and the surrounding airspace for several hours to ensure commercial safety. Flights were canceled. A metro area of nearly 700,000 people felt it.
This time, the airspace closure was smaller. Commercial flights weren’t affected. But the pattern is hard to ignore.
Late Thursday, the FAA, CBP, and Pentagon issued a joint statement confirming the military “employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.”
Officials emphasized the engagement occurred far from populated areas and commercial flight paths.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” the statement read.
Fair enough. Cartels use drones routinely — hauling narcotics, scouting Border Patrol positions, probing U.S. vulnerabilities. Officials told Congress last summer that more than 27,000 drones were detected within 1,600 feet of the southern border in just six months of 2024.
In the Fort Bliss case, sources familiar with the situation said CBP deployed its anti-drone laser without coordinating with the FAA. The FAA then shut down airspace to protect civilian traffic.