A New Mexico GPS jamming exercise at White Sands Missile Range contributed to a fatal medevac crash in May, Wired reported, after a Beechcraft King Air crew lost satellite navigation on a night flight from Roswell to Ruidoso. Two pilots and two nurses were aboard the twin-engine aircraft; all four died when it hit a mountain.
The flight was supposed to be short: about 60 miles west to pick up a patient and then continue to Albuquerque. Conditions were benign by the usual aviation checklist, with clear skies and a temperature of 69 degrees. The problem came from the radio spectrum, not the weather.
According to Wired, the crash is the first known civilian aircraft accident in the United States in which GPS jamming contributed to the outcome. The military exercise was part of NAVFEST, an annual event run by the Air Force’s 746th Test Squadron of the 704th Test Group at White Sands, where military units test GPS disruption and ways to operate through it.
How did GPS jamming affect the Ruidoso flight?
The crew took off eight minutes before midnight on May 13. At midnight, the pilots told Albuquerque Center that they had lost GPS and asked air traffic control for a heading. The controller first pointed them west, then north, Wired reported.
GPS lets aircraft determine position from satellite timing signals. When those weak signals are blocked, systems that draw the neat cockpit route line and support RNAV approaches can become unusable. For a plain-English explainer of the underlying system, see Kernel’s guide to how GPS works.
The pilots, captain Keelan Clark, 30, and first officer Ali Kawsara, 23, initially wanted to fly an RNAV approach into Ruidoso. With GPS unavailable, they shifted to an Instrument Landing System approach, which relies on ground-based radio equipment rather than satellite reception. At 12:05 am, Albuquerque Center told them vectors would come in a couple of minutes.
Those minutes mattered. Wired reported that three other aircraft also told controllers they had lost GPS and needed assistance, while one struggled with a radio beacon. As controllers handled the wider disruption, the King Air kept flying north and overshot the landing pattern by about 10 miles.
The pilots then asked to make a visual approach. Air traffic control approved it. From their altitude, the crew could see the lights of Ruidoso’s airport about 31 miles southwest, but the dark Capitan Mountains stood between the aircraft and the airport.
Juan Browne, an airline pilot who hosts a crash-investigation podcast, told Wired the nearly moonless, rural terrain offered very little outside reference. He said the disappearance of valley lights behind rising terrain could create confusion and a loss of situational awareness. Retired airline pilot Kenneth Krentsa told Wired that a crew in that position should climb and hold until it knows where it is.
The King Air descended, then slowed that descent and climbed slightly, according to Wired. It still continued toward the terrain and struck the slope at speed.
Why was the military jamming GPS near civilian routes?
The military uses GPS jamming exercises because drones and missiles often depend on satellite navigation, and electronic warfare units need to test how to deny or survive those signals. White Sands is used for such work because it is remote by continental US standards, though the effects did not stay neatly inside the range boundary.
The Federal Aviation Administration warned aircraft operators before NAVFEST that GPS could be affected as far as 400 miles away between May 12 and May 18, Wired reported. Eliran Almog, CEO of cybersecurity firm Cyviation, told Wired that airlines are seeing more navigation disruptions far from actual conflict zones as drone warfare and electronic warfare expand.
Todd Humphreys, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies GPS interference, told Wired that rising jamming and spoofing create a safety risk for commercial aviation. He also said air travel remains very safe, while warning that the industry may face increasing GPS interference for years as aviation adapts slowly.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
