Comment by jmatthiass
8 days ago
As someone else mentioned, there’s some speculation in aviation subreddits that the bounds of the altitude restriction map to the MANPAD capabilities that some cartels are purported to have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1r1s4zt/comment/o...
My read is that the admin is planning forceful strikes on the cartels within Mexico and is worried about their ability to retaliate by taking down US aircraft across the border.
Edit: The closure has now been kiboshed. The wording seems a little “don’t panic-y” to me, but better that than the alternative! https://x.com/FAANews/status/2021583720465969421
Knowing the restriction goes to 18k certainly says that either S-A or A-S reach must be limited but the as your post points out no buffer between MANPAD actual range and the limit imposed. I think unlikely to say MANPAD, specifically.
There's a small private airfield to the west with only a single victor airway connecting to el-paso. the victors end at 17999 ft, effectively cutting traffic for non-commercial or non-business jet operators.
Closure of the victor airway there seems, again limiting airborne craft due to airborne hazards.
Hazards in the air, near the surface that are, seemingly, unplanned with a cone pointing at mexico.
That's kind of the most anyone will get until more info, could be some urgent testing of some capability or response to small craft (drones) coming over the boarder. Emergency timing could be to garner interest or emphasize importance, which works well politically.
Las Cruces International Airport and Dana Jetport are unaffected.
The restriction goes to 18k because that's the top of VFR space. Anyone operating above 18k has to be on an IFR clearance and under positive ATC control. That makes it easy for the feds to make a call and say "Hey, center, get everyone out of this airspace" wheras in the VFR altitudes it's very difficult for them to legally clear the space since a VFR plane could be flying around not talking to anyone.
I only know about Las Cruces from the Organ Mountain Outfitters training material in the DaVinci Resolve sample footage. Sadly they closed a few months ago, which is a shame because I never got my arse in gear to order a shirt from them.
Even Cartels know that shooting down civilian aircraft in US airspace would be an escalation that would lead to heavy retaliation. Doesn't seem likely to me.
Coming from groups that just pickup busses of people to murder, I wouldn’t be so sure that firing back at the US would be out of the question.
Murdering buses of people doesn't bring the full force of the US military on them. The difference is the risk not the depravity.
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The distinction is those are cases where they are murdering Mexican citizens. If a cartel murdered a bus of people in America I suspect most any administration would retaliate in some form.
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who are we (the US)? People who wantonly murder people on fishing boats, etc.
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This is different.
See, Drug cartels over here operate with the blessing and favor of our president. They are tightly connected.
If a cartel dared to ground a US flight. The US government would have a "free pass" to break all hell loose in Mexico, and Sheinbaum wouldn't have a way to stop it.
She doesn't want that in any way, so the message to the cartel bosses would be to be very careful in that respect.
Sure, there have been US citizens killed within Mexico here and there, but those can easily be attributed to local violence. And as retribution, Mexican government sends a couple of wanted criminals to the US.
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Unless the government is planning an attack on the cartel[s] that is so existential that such action wouldn't be considered an escalation but rather a tic for tat.
A trapped animal will generally use all its facilities regardless of its expected effectiveness.
Remember that there is no "the" cartel, just so many different towns and interests and bribed officials. It makes it a significant (and perhaps convenient) misnomer dont get me wrong, but maybe important to remember.
Extremely good, highly researched book if you want to get angry at me or call me idiot!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Cartels_Do_Not_Exist
Good point. I guess it depends on the force, size, and especially effectiveness of any potential strikes. (i.e. How cornered a cartel might feel and how much flexing an outsized response might stand to gain them.)
Yea you have to be a nation state like Israel, Iran or Russia to blow civilian aircraft out of the sky with no retaliation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
US has also blown a civilian airliner out the sky.
Yes that might be the high-level logic, but if you give a MANPAD to a 19 year old sicario on meth, accidents do happen.
I’d be surprised if cartels would tolerate hard drug use by their soldiers, it seems like the kind of thing they’d kill you for, lack of discipline.
I think you misunderstood that movie.
If that aircraft held a person they wanted dead, I would not put it past them.
Unless we start bombing them first. That’s not hard to imagine these days.
Not hard to imagine these days? Wouldn't you hope for an intervention if it were known that a hostile, state-level military planned to down civilian aircraft?
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Mistakes happen though
My read is most likely some kind of strike on the cartels. There hasn’t seemed to be any significant US military buildup so it’s something they’ll be able to do with a smaller force.
The trapezoid makes me worried about a ground incision there- it extends to the border and would be a cover space for an invasion force. Absolutely bonkers that we are even having this discussion.
The TFR is most likely contingency planning for possible retaliation by cartel drones and the need to keep the airspace clear so they can see (with radar) and shoot down drones and not passenger aircraft.
You are the first person to mention invasion. Kind of bonkers to jump to that conclusion.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves living in a bonkers time.
Other commenters here in this thread as well as many people on reddit and other sites about this news are also saying the same thing. Our minds are not as unique as we think :)
Nuts, definitely. Bonkers to jump to that conclusion? No, especially with this US administration. Mexico itself is concerned enough about the possibility that it's made statements to make it clear it wouldn't be acceptable. Mexico thinks it's nuts, too, but not bonkers to think the US might do it.
US troops in Mexico 'not on the table', Sheinbaum tells Trump https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20260112-us-troops-mexi...
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It is totally nuts. We will see I guess. If there will be a ground invasion, people will see the convoys moving into position. You can’t really hide that much stuff.
What’s also bonkers is our political whimpiness that allowed this to happen, right? If there is a drone response it’s pretty damning evidence that we are way too dovish in our policy against drug smuggling up until now
It doesn't say much either way.
I'm from the UK, we had the ("real") IRA put a RPG-22 anti-tank rocket at the walls of MI6 HQ (the UK version of the CIA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_MI6_attack
Dangerous things like these are not expensive, compared to even low budget small-time group.
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"Maybe, or maybe FL180 is a nice clean line for class A airspace. No need to bother transcontinental flights for a local issue."
Way more plauible
FL180 is the floor of Class A airspace, "the flight levels", where airliners etc. operate.
Relevant chapter from FAA "Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge": https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/17_phak_ch15.pdf
In the "Flight Levels", altitudes are referred to not in feet above sea level but as "FLxxx" where xxx is a nominal altitude in 100s of feet.
Altimetry is done using barometric pressure. Since this varies with weather, airplanes at lower altitudes set their altimeters to the local barometric pressure for a reasonably accurate reading. In the flight levels, where planes are typically covering ground quickly and there is very little chance of your path conflicting with the surface of the Earth, every plane sets to an agreed-upon reference of 29.92 inches of mercury as the altimeter setting.
What does that mean sorry?
It means any aircraft transitioning over the area at high altitude isn't impacted, because they're too high to care.
It is a ground and "everything near the ground" stop. Meaning low altitude helicopters and private aircraft have to consider it, even transitioning, but realistically commercial aircraft not taking off/landing in the area won't.
FL180 is 18000 feet, meaning that flights OVER don’t need to divert.
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It means that you have no business being below FL180 or 18,000ft to enter this airspace.
That it limits local flights but not international ones as they fly higher.
Doing a closure up to 18k feet is common because that's where class A airspace starts, i.e. you need a clearance to go there, you can't just fly around VFR wherever you want. The airspace above 18k might not be officially closed, but controllers can be instructed to just not give a clearance into whatever area they deem is unsafe on a particular day.
I think it's simpler. It's going to make the cartel drones easier to spot.
Do you think the cartels won’t see this news? If this is all it was, the cartels can just wait 10 days and start up again.
Shooting down civilian American aircraft like that would seem to just be for an even more strong response…
Seems unlikely.
If only this was a certainty - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down with 298 people killed 12 years ago but still no one was directly punished for it...
Malaysia isn't going to attack Russia.
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> Shooting down civilian *American* aircraft like that would seem to just be for an even more strong response…
They would want to avoid escalation. Escalation with cartels historically does not go well for anyone involved.
Escalation by attacking US civilians or the homeland has also gone poorly. It’s been the casus belli many times, notably ending in two Japanese cities getting nuked…
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Today I learned: Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) are shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles designed for use by individuals or small teams to engage low-flying aircraft, helicopters, and UAVs.
Would that account for the trapezoidal shape of the one restricted area?
My bet is a showy armored advance though the open terrain near there… it’ll look great on camera! /s
Sounds like a great way to reinforce the "We ready to move along from Epstein" narrative.
It seems crazy not to just, tell people that if that's what it is. "Hey if you are flying above 18,000 please don't go lower because you could be blown up by a MANPAD."
If the cartels have MANPADS then our intel is already blown by issuing the TFR, so what's the harm in just saying it out loud?
Mass panic? Think of how wildly it would be misrepresented in the media and how disruptive it would be to all air travel in the country. People aren't rational actors and the most sensationalized headline is what ends up spreading
For your first point, on the off chance they have other equipment capable of surpassing MANPADS I’d prefer as a passenger they just fly around.
Second point, it’s not obvious if its for MANPAD reasons or it’s our own operation though we can speculate.
I'm not sure if the person I replied to edited their comment, or I looked at the wrong one, but the one I originally read said the TFR only had the restriction below 18,000 ft. I was addressing it on that basis, which wasn't requiring people flying above that to route around it.
Of course, the US elected the only celebrity of the 80s and 90s who hates blow.
On the other hand a careful analysis of the plumbing system of Trump's Tower and Trump's Hotels in general would reveal possibly the highest concentration of coke than any other building in the world considering the intersection of wealth and istrionic personalities who called those apartments home at one time or the other.
Fate sure loves irony
Besides I would go to my grave claiming that racism is particularly strong in the war on drugs, if coca grew plentiful and naturally in the US and Europe it would not be illegal at all.
But it's scary because uh ohh inssulfation of an extract of a plant coming from the global south we are all gonna die, somebody will please think of the children.
But hey you can gulp 60 oz of super strong energy drinks which equate to about 5-6 fat lines, matter of fact you can gulp 600 oz and cause yourself a heart attack and nobody would bat an eye or investigate the safety profile of such drinks
It's the same old story with alcohol too
> But hey you can gulp 60 oz of super strong energy drinks which equate to about 5-6 fat lines
Are you joking?
Look, I’m no stranger to drugs, but coke is not a “60oz energy drink” and its potential for generally destroying someone’s life is, while not at the same level, definitely in the same ballpark as crack, heroin, and meth.
60 oz energy drink = 5-6 fat lines perhaps more
The most dense energy drinks have 350-400 of caffeine in a can these days and on top of that there's the taurine etc.
60 oz is 4 cans, do your math. 4 * 400 = 1600mg of caffeine alone
> > potential for generally destroying someone’s life is, while not at the same level, definitely in the same ballpark as crack, heroin, and meth.
That's more of the result of the enviornment and the associated people who frequent such circles and not the stimulant per se.
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“Terrorists” would tend to not consider themselves such.
I doubt the same is true of cartels and their members.
I'm pretty sure no one else reading the comment has any trouble understanding what is meant when talking about cartels in Mexico. What exactly is ambiguous to you?
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A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade.[1] Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the illegal drug trade and maintaining prices at a high level. The formations of drug cartels are common in Latin American countries. Rivalries between multiple drug cartels cause them to wage turf wars against each other. Drug cartels often transport both drugs and narcotics, and most often the term "Narcotics cartel" is not used to describe an organization that transports the latter legally defined set of illegal substances, such as marijuana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_cartel
It means organized crime focusing on drugs in this context
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