The US government says communication between agencies is better after a military laser was used to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone in Texas on Thursday.
Some Democratic members of Congress, including ranking members of the House Homeland Security and Transportation committees, called the incident another example of “incompetence.”
It led to the temporary closure of El Paso’s airspace two weeks after CBP used a military laser to shoot down what turned out to be party balloons in Texas.
The Pentagon, CBP and the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged the latest incident in a joint statement Thursday. He said there were no commercial flights nearby.
“At the direction of President Trump, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats posed by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations along the U.S.-Mexico border,” the agencies said in a statement.
“This reported engagement occurred when the War Department assigned counter-unmanned aircraft system officers to combat unmanned aerial systems operating in military airspace,” he said.
“These agencies will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future,” the agencies said in a joint statement.
The statement did not specify which CBP drone was shot down.
“The Department of Defense used a high-powered laser” to shoot down the CBP drone, the New York Times reported, citing four people who were not authorized to speak publicly. Bloomberg reported the same, citing people familiar with the matter.
The ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Benny Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking Democratic member on the House Transportation Committee and the ranking member on the Aviation Subcommittee, criticized the reported mishap but did not elaborate on it.
“We were blown away by the news that DOD shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone using a high-risk counter-unmanned aircraft system,” they said in a joint statement.
He criticized the Trump administration for “pushing aside” a bipartisan bill to train drone operators and improve communication between the Pentagon, the FAA and the Department of Homeland Security.
“Now, we are seeing the result of its inefficiency,” he said.
The earlier laser firing was by CBP near Fort Bliss, about 50 miles northwest, and prompted the FAA to suspend air traffic in and around the El Paso airport. This time, the closure was short and did not affect commercial flights.
The FAA said Thursday it has extended the closure of the airspace around Fort Hancock.
The El Paso shutdown two weeks ago lasted only a few hours but it raised alarm and led to several flight cancellations in the city of about 700,000 people, not far from the Mexican border.
NBC News previously reported that CBP officers used an anti-drone laser to shoot down what the four identified as party balloons after the military provided them.
CBP did so without coordinating with the FAA, the four people said, and the FAA closed the airspace.
Later, members of Congress said it was another example of dysfunction within the government where various agencies failed to coordinate with each other.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he plans to brief members of Congress this week on what happened. He said at an unrelated news conference last Friday that the FAA’s closure of the airspace in El Paso was not a mistake and that he did not think it was a communication problem that caused the problems.
Sen. Ranking Member of the Senate Aviation Subcommittee. Tammy Duckworth said Thursday the situation is alarming and demands independent investigations.
“The Trump administration’s incompetence will cause chaos in our skies,” he said.
Duckworth, D-Ill., said the Defense Department used a “high energy laser” to shoot down the drone.
An investigation into last year’s mid-air collision between an airliner and an Army helicopter near Washington, DC, that killed 67 people, highlighted how the FAA and the Pentagon don’t always work together.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the FAA and the military did not share safety data with each other about an alarming number of close calls around Reagan National Airport and failed to address the risks.
