'Insane.' 'Crazy.' 'Wild.'

I obtained about 100 text messages, group chat logs and emails that detail how local government officials grappled with February's shocking El Paso airspace shutdown.

After dark on Feb. 10, El Paso International Airport Operations Manager Alexander Rao received a text message from Curtis Dowling, the local Federal Aviation Administration air traffic manager.

Dowling has some shocking news: FAA headquarters was closing El Paso airspace. For the next 10 days.

Rao apparently couldn’t believe what he was reading.

“What’s this for?” Rao demanded.

“Security and it’s gonna be until almost 11 days … From 2/11 to 2/21.”

“Straight?”

“Yes.”

“Zero flights,” Rao pressed.

“Yes,” Dowling confirmed.

So began hours of chaos, confusion and missed connections, as local government and aviation officials in El Paso, Texas, and nearby Doña Ana County, N.M., struggled to obtain even the most basic information from the federal government about why they had taken such a dramatic action.

Using the Texas Public Information Act and the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, I obtained about 100 text messages, group chat logs and emails that detail how local government officials grappled with February’s shocking El Paso airspace shutdown.

What I learned from them is chronicled in my new story in NOTUS:

→ “Mass Confusion’: Government Texts Reveal Chaotic Response to Shutdown of El Paso Airspace.” ←

Please read the whole thing! These records weren’t easy to get!

In the meantime, a few highlights:

• Initially, confusion reigned. “Insane,” the El Paso airport’s director of aviation, Tony Nevarez, remarked in a text with an airport colleague shortly after Dowling informed him of the air traffic stoppage. “Crazy,” another official said in a group chat with airport officials.

• The FAA and various other government agencies had little or nothing to communicate with local officials, who basically found themselves alone in grappling with the fallout. There were airlines and other airports to alert, more than 100 flights canceled the next day, a flying public of thousands that would be big mad, potential security concerns. The messages detail how they decided not to wait for federal-level answers or direction and took matters into their own hands.

• In the midst of the tumult, some airport officials did their best to maintain a sense of humor. Shane Brooks, an assistant director of aviation development, circulated a cartoon of a walkie-talkie brandishing bunny rabbit, remaking, “WTF, OVER,” along with the message, “All of airport staff today.”

And if you don’t know what caused the airspace shutdown in the first place, be sure to read to the end here. (Spoiler: It wasn’t Mexican drug cartel drones as first thought.)