Hacker News Reader

Comment by fabian2k | Hacker News Reader

There is a circular restriction around the airport and a trapezoid one next to the city (https://elpasomatters.org/2026/02/11/unexplained-faa-order-s...).

What are the plausible explanations here? I can't think of anything except military action against Mexico (or the cartels inside Mexico). But even that doesn't fit well.

A suspected terror attack could explain the airspace around the airport, but not the weird trapezoid restriction next to the city.

The duration of 10 days is also weird, that seems very long for any kind of emergency situation. And as far as I understand, it is unusual to have no exceptions at all here e.g. for medical transports via helicopter.

View on HN

The not-totally-crazy ideas from Reddit include:

- it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)

- someone in Mexico is getting kidnapped by Gov

- nuclear tests

I wish those were crazy ideas, but here we are...

> GPS disruption

Ah, a very plausible explanation!

https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...

The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Isn't it possible that a 10-day TFR could be lifted early once the concern is past? They've probably made it 10 days just to establish an upper bound.

If it's just routine testing, then why couldn't they have announced it earlier to allow companies to plan and/or fly their planes out of the affected area?

> > The map indicates it will be centered on Lampasas and the region of effect seems to be east of El Paso. So, if the GPS exercises are the cause, the TFRs would've been more likely to bring in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Wait so people in South Texas won't be able to use GPS on the ground either?

Also if the goal is to disrupt the cartels and the people using GPS to know where they are at in the process of crossing the border illegally why is the Army involved in this at all?

The Army has no business in taking part of operations to disrupt cartels and illegal immigration, it's the whole rational behind having 3 letters agency including the evil one that rose to prominence lately

The Global Positioning System is owned and operated by Space Delta 8 at Schriever Space Force Base in CO[1]. Testing in collaboration the US Army (the primary customer of GPS services) is hardly noteworthy.

[1] https://www.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Fact-Sheet-D...

> - it's related to the annouced GPS disruption test (although that's a really long time and doesn't seem urgent enough)

Those are done regularly without TFRs. See recent example in Texas:

* https://avbrief.com/overnight-gps-testing-affects-huge-area-...

A link to a list of notices at:

* https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps-service-interruptions

I don't know which Reddit thread you're reading (there are many I'm sure) but the one in r/Aviation seems to have a favourite theory that there was a credible threat of someone with MANPADS, which are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles and not some sort of sanitary product.

Apparently they have a ceiling of 18,000ft which is exactly the limit of the restriction in El Paso. Aircraft are allowed fly over if they go above that

That's also just the cutoff for class A airspace. I think people are reading too much into the specific height.

Most plausible comment I found on the internet was the government lost something in that trapezoid and doesn't want anyone to fly over it and find it until it's collected.

Ah, so an alien's contact lens

Roswel is a few hours away by car. Interesting theory but they would lose it there.

Quick, someone call Skinner and get Mulder and Scully on the case!

Broken Arrow?

Probably laser shootdown of drug carrying drones.

I honestly assume it's something petty. Like an El Paso air traffic controller was rude to a deportation flight pilot.

Another interesting note, the trapezoidal TFR is still in place

My guess is nuclear test.

Airport circle to secure the transport of the device to the ground adjacent to the test site.

Trapezoid is the test site, wider on the side that is less controllable (border-facing).

Disconnected because two separate teams executed in parallel without informed oversight.

... I don't think they're detonating a nuclear weapon in a National Monument 50 miles from a large US city...

There are plenty of better places for them to do this.

It’s probably not SOP to land nuclear weapons at the municipal airport either.

There is a military base with its own airfield located within El Paso basically right next to El Paso International Airport.

NTS was 60-80 mi away from Las Vegas.

yes there might be safer locations for an underground nuclear test, but how many of them offer the same "F U" PR capacity relative to Mexico/Juarez/cartels, etc.

A nuclear weapon is only "F U" PR to cartels if you believe they're literally braindead, which given that they run massive international businesses, I suspect they're not.

Nukes mean nothing to a cartel. What an insane idea.

While we have an excuse explanation from the admin now which nobody knows how true or not it is, its trump of course. Why is it off or weird that he'd want to see a big boom.

While Mexican side has no restrictions - that would be supremely dumb even for a primary school level of thinking. Tons of civilians dead with clear reason who caused it, completely preventable.

Fantasy often likes extreme options but most probably saner reason like expected strike on cartels and their retaliation is whats happening.

>supremely dumb even for a primary school level of thinking

So 100% Trump

Reply on news.ycombinator.com