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Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

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Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#31

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

malfist wrote: post #25
mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

The Darwin Awards site[0] is full of "victims" that were 100% responsible for their own deaths.

> If any of yer ancestor's last words were "Hey, ya'll! Look at this!", then you jest might be a redneck.

- Jeff Foxworthy

[0] https://darwinawards.com

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#32

Post by sokoloff »

malfist wrote: post #25
mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

The pilot is literally the one who holds most of the blame here.

This is a pilot-error accident. They flew a perfectly functioning airplane into rising terrain on a visual approach.

The pilot requested, and was cleared for, a visual approach. Among other things that that imposes upon on the pilot is an obligation to maintain visual contact with the airport (or the preceding aircraft to follow, not applicable here) and to maintain terrain and obstacle clearance.

The primary probable cause will be found to be something like "The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from terrain while on visual approach." with additional notes of "Contributing to the accident were the dark moonless night, the NOTAM'd unreliability of GPS signal in the area which required the crew to revert to other navigation methods, and the pilot's decision to fly an unaided visual approach rather than flying the ILS instrument approach track."

The passengers were blameless, but the flight crew was not.

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#33

Post by lettergram »

After reading the story, it seems like lack of training. I think training should assume GPS goes out (which it does), in this case they didn’t pull up when they saw “lights going out” as a mountain became between them and the airfield.

Air traffic control also failed here.

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#34

Post by jatora »

malfist wrote: post #25
mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

You're not sure? It's pretty clear they're laying out that this is pilot error, unlike the article's intent to blame parties other than the pilot. The poster is trying to correct that, from an obvious place of knowledge and experience most of us do not have, and isn't being rude about it either.

It's important to understand why things happen in order to prevent them.

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#35

Post by seatac76 »

The loss is tragic but I’m sorry GPS jamming was not a factor here. There was a NOTAM indicating it’s going on, the pilots should have been aware and it appears when they reached out with a request the jamming was stopped.

It was a visual approach at a moonless night at an airport in high terrain, this was pilot error unfortunately.

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#36

Post by jatora »

colechristensen wrote: post #20
mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

It's pretty clear they're laying out that this is pilot error, unlike the article's intent to blame parties other than the pilot. The poster is trying to correct that, from an obvious place of knowledge and experience most of us do not have, and isn't being rude about it either.

It's important to understand why things happen in order to prevent them, and to counter the narrative of the opinionated article. And if we should wait for the NTSB report, then so should the article.

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#37

Post by jatora »

mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#38

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #13

The final information on the crash almost reads like they hit the very top of the mountain - according to NTSB, they were about 200-250 ft from the summit, so it is possible they did still have visual with the airport until right before the impact. Whether or not GPS could've helped with this, I'm not sure - it might've allowed them to see where they were relative to the mountain better, since it was the middle of th…

Your GPS enabled flight computer will indeed yell at you VERY LOUDLY if you're about to hit a mountain. It will not allow you to get particularly close to terrain without noticing.

[deleted]

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#39

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #20
mrngld wrote: post #15

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit. But that's what we train for. Th…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking

#40

Post by MSFT_Edging »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #13

The final information on the crash almost reads like they hit the very top of the mountain - according to NTSB, they were about 200-250 ft from the summit, so it is possible they did still have visual with the airport until right before the impact. Whether or not GPS could've helped with this, I'm not sure - it might've allowed them to see where they were relative to the mountain better, since it was the middle of th…

Your GPS enabled flight computer will indeed yell at you VERY LOUDLY if you're about to hit a mountain. It will not allow you to get particularly close to terrain without noticing.

I'm wondering what they could have done differently here. The report said it was a 0% moonlight night, extremely dark. No exact position from GPS, and visuals on the landing strip. That mountain peak would have likely been invisible from the pilot's seat.

What would have been the "skill issue" difference people keep mentioning? It's getting really frustrating how reckless the US military is with the skies. They keep putting people in danger. I can't help but think about the DCA crash due to the continuity of government drills.

There's no reason they should have been flying dark for a drill that night.

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