Texas airspace 'embarrassment' causing 'chaos' at high levels: 'Lot of blame going around'

The abrupt closure of the airspace over El Paso, Texas, has set off "chaos" and "finger-pointing" at the highest levels of President Donald Trump's administration.

The Federal Aviation Agency announced Wednesday the airspace would be closed for 10 days, only to reverse the decision about eight hours later, and reports have since emerged that the shutdown was enacted because Customs and Border Patrol had been testing a high-energy laser at nearby Fort Bliss against suspected foreign drones that turned out to be party balloons.

"This set off a scramble across the entire administration," reported CNN's Kevin Liptak. "When the FAA put this restriction in place on Wednesday, including here at the White House, where officials told us they were left totally in the dark, they essentially found out about it in real time as it was happening. They had to quickly call the FAA to reverse course, which, of course, they did, but not before an enormous amount of confusion, worry and frankly, a lot of embarrassment inside the administration, and it has led to this blame game."

"Now you know, at the White House, the blame is being laid squarely on the FAA for not alerting them to what they were planning to do," he continued. "A lot of that blame was being heaped on the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, whose agency houses the FAA, but we're getting pushback from other parts of the administration. One official put it to us as it's baffling that White House officials are upset with Duffy for protecting the airspace and not the folks who launched the laser, and, of course, the laser is this high energy counter-drone laser that the Pentagon has been testing. They had loaned it to Customs and Border Protection, who were testing it in remote areas that is eventually what led the FAA to close this airspace."

Officials from the FAA and the Pentagon had been scheduled to meet Feb. 20 to discuss the technology, which poses a potential hazard to civilian aircraft.

"The FAA wanted assurances that it wouldn't interfere with commercial aviation, but when the Pentagon went ahead and began testing it before then, that's when they shut down the airspace," Liptak said. "So a lot of blame going around, very complex web of a finger-pointing. I think it also underscores what has become quite a contentious relationship between the Pentagon and the FAA. It had already really been on the rocks since that plane crash last year, when an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight and left 67 people dead near Ronald Reagan Airport."

"All of this of course, leading to furious reaction from a representatives in El Paso," he added. "The Democrat, [Rep.] Veronica Escobar, wrote on social media, quote, 'This was the result of incompetence at the highest levels of the administration.'"

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