The FAA (United States Federal Aviation Administration) issued a temporary restriction immediately suspending all flights leaving and going to El Paso International Airport, Texas, and an area of southern New Mexico for 10 days.
According to the FAA website, the suspension of flights over El Paso and Santa Teresa, New Mexico, is due to “special safety reasons.”
An administration statement classifies the airspace as “National Defense Airspace” and states that pilots who violate the restriction may be intercepted, detained and interrogated by authorities.
The statement warns that additional measures may be taken against pilots who do not comply with the restrictions, including suspension of flying licenses, criminal charges and that the United States government “may use lethal force” if an aircraft poses an “imminent safety threat.”
El Paso International Airport, which issued a statement on Tuesday night (10), said that all commercial, cargo and general aviation flights will be suspended until February 20.
The agency issued the restriction “with little notice,” and airport staff reached out for further guidance, the airport said in another statement to the agency’s affiliate. CNNKFOX.
In an audio obtained by CNNyou can hear El Paso air traffic control informing flights of the imminent airspace closure.
“It’s a total shutdown… not even medical rescue flights are allowed to fly,” says a controller in the audio, recorded on Tuesday night by the website LiveATC.net. “Wow!” responds a crew member.
The closure of airspace is expected to cause major disruption to El Paso, an important industrial hub, said Robert Moore, founder and CEO of the news website El Paso Matters, to CNN.
“We’ve never seen anything like this here, at least since 9/11 when everything was shut down,” he said.
A CNN has reached out to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and El Paso International Airport for more information.
