After years of warnings, fatal New Mexico medical plane crash linked to military GPS jamming - National & International News -

After years of warnings, military GPS jamming linked to fatal New Mexico medical plane crash

On May 13, a Beechcraft King Air C90 medevac ambulance took off from Roswell, NM, headed for Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso to pick up a patient awaiting transport to a hospital in Albuquerque. It was 11:52 p.m. on a moonless night, making it difficult for the pilots to navigate by sight. At about 12:15 a.m., the plane crashed into the Capitan mountains. All four people aboard were killed: pilots Keelan Clark, Ali Kawsara and flight nurses Sarah Clark and Jamie Novick.

An NTSB report released late last week detailed what happened leading up to the crash. The night of the crash, White Sands Missile Range was conducting GPS jamming tests. The US military has been working with this technology for years, which uses electromagnetic radiation to block or “spoof” the satellite data transmissions that GPS relies on. Its hazards to air traffic are well known as pilots have become more and more reliant on GPS technology for navigation. The military usually warns the Federal Aviation Administration 24 hours ahead of time. The FAA then sends out a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) advising pilots of potential GPS outages.

The night of the crash, a NOTAM was sent out. About 8 minutes into the flight, the pilots contacted air traffic control reporting a GPS failure. The pilots requested heading vectors to help navigate the mountainous terrain in the dark. However, the jamming also made it more difficult for ATC to accurately position the plane. Aware of the danger, an ATC supervisor reached out to the military to pause the jamming, which they did. The pilots then reported having the airport in sight. The ATC supervisor, believing the danger had passed, reached out to the military to tell them they could resume jamming. Jamming was resumed and a few minutes later, the plane crashed into the mountain.

The NTSB report has not reached a final conclusion on the causes of the crash. A full report is expected in a few months.

A decade of warnings

KOB4, an NBC affiliate in Albuquerque, examined years of NTSB reports detailing aviation hazards related to GPS jamming. In all they collected over 70 reports documenting problems encountered by pilots, air traffic controllers and dispatchers going back a decade. In 12 of these documented instances, GPS interference was reported with no NOTAM notification. Several also describe requests from pilots and controllers to call the military to pause jamming (known as a “stop buzzer”) being denied, usually by upper management in air traffic control

FAA managers have reportedly told air traffic controllers that fulfilling a request to pause jamming request) costs the military between $5 million to $10 million. Three of the reports (two from 2021 and one from 2025) documented by KOB4 report that ATC management told controllers not to request stop buzzers and to just put everyone on headings.

Many of the NTSB reports document concerns from pilots and controllers that GPS jamming by the military posed a serious danger to aviation and the flying public.