The incident followed a similar gaffe this month near the southern border in which border protection officials reportedly used a laser to shoot down a party balloon it mistook for a drone.
Democratic lawmakers demanded an investigation into Thursday’s strike, slamming the White House’s “incompetence.”
The drone, which belonged to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), was shot down over a small town near El Paso, Texas, the New York Times reported, quoting anonymous sources who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The CBP had not notified the Pentagon that it was launching a drone in the area, and the laser was used without approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Times added.
The FAA said in a notice on Thursday that it was temporarily closing airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from El Paso, citing “special security reasons.”
The error prompted scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers, who accused President Donald Trump’s administration of showing a “lack of coordination” between agencies.”Our heads are exploding over the news that DoD reportedly shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone using a high-risk counter-unmanned aircraft system,” Democratic Representatives Rick Larsen, Bennie Thompson and Andre Carson, who sit on committees related to aviation and security matters, said in a statement.
The Pentagon, CBP and FAA said agencies would boost cooperation to prevent similar mistakes from happening again.
“This reported engagement occurred when the Department of War employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace,” the agencies said in a joint statement quoted by the Times.
The Department of War is the Trump administration’s rebrand of the Department of Defense.
The Pentagon, FAA and CBP “will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future,” the agencies said.
