FAA Issues Warnings for U.S. Airlines Flying Over Central and South America

Federal authorities are warning U.S. airlines about flying over areas of Central and South America due to possible military activity.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) advisories were issued on Friday and are set for the next 60 days, USA Today reported, noting the warnings pertain to possible military activities and GPS interference.

“The FAA issued flight advisory Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) for specified areas of Mexico, Central American, Panama, Bogata, Guayaquil, and Mazatlán Oceanic Flight Regions, and in airspace within the eastern Pacific Ocean,” authorities explained.

In November, international flights to Venezuela were cancelled due to security risks and the FAA warned pilots to use caution while in the air, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The news came as President Donald Trump zeroed in on Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. military later captured in what Trump called a “brilliant” operation.

Following Maduro’s capture, several Americans who were detained in Venezuela were released, and the U.S. State Department said, “This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.”

The Breitbart News article continued:

Though Washington and Caracas have long had a fraught and limited relationship, prisoner releases have been a rare source of connection, with the two countries engaging in a series of swaps of detained citizens.

In July, Venezuela released 10 jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

In June, authoritarian regime leaders in Cuba and Venezuela condemned U.S. travel restrictions Trump imposed on their citizens, according to Breitbart News.

“Both regimes — which have committed an extensive list of human rights violations against their own people, pushing millions to flee from communism and socialism — respectively accused U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of being behind the ‘racist’ and ‘hateful’ travel restrictions,” the outlet said.

“Rubio is an American of Cuban descent and, as such, has traditionally attracted a disproportionate volume of the Castro regime’s vitriol against American officials,” it noted.