Article By Bob Cronin
Pilots were warned military was interfering with signals, investigators say
he air ambulance that slammed into Capitan Mountain in May was flying through an area of New Mexico where the US military was jamming GPS signals, federal investigators said Wednesday. In a preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that scheduled GPS interference from White Sands Missile Range was active during the fatal May 14 flight near Ruidoso that killed all four people aboard a Beechcraft King Air and sparked a wildfire that burned more than 30,000 acres, KOB reports. Investigators said pilots in the area were warned about the jamming, per the AP.
Controllers briefly were able to halt the jamming after the crew reported losing GPS shortly after departing Roswell Air Center just before midnight, but it resumed about 10 minutes after midnight—soon after the pilots said they had the runway at Sierra Blanca Regional Airport in sight and were cleared for a visual approach. The plane hit the mountain about five minutes later at around 10,000 feet. The report, which does not assign fault or determine cause, per KOB, notes that three other aircraft reported GPS loss that night.
Experts said the pilots should have been able to land safely by relying on ground-based navigation systems or flying visually, but relying on GPS is popular because it is so precise, per the AP. “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. A final report is expected in 12 to 24 months.
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