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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

#41

Post by stefan_ »

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]

Maybe you are just aren't aware that military GPS jamming is extremely routine around the US. It affects airplanes more than cars because the curvature of the earth can not help you and at typical flight altitudes you have easy line of sight to the jammer.

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

#42

Post by sokoloff »

seatac76 wrote: post #35

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.

I'll bet that the NTSB will list GPS jamming as a contributing factor. I agree with you that it's not the primary cause of the accident.

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

#43

Post by sokoloff »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #40
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a judgment issue more than a skill issue.

GPS NOTAM'd as unreliable on a dark, moonless night?

Fly the ILS approach (or fly a visual approach along the track of the ILS approach backing up your visual with the radio signals). That will give you terrain and obstacle clearance all along the route using locally generated navigation signals that will be entirely unaffected by GPS jamming.

https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2607/06922IL24.PDF

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

#44

Post by fusslo »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #3

The preliminary NTSB report: https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...

> At 0000:26, the ARTCC controller advised the flight crew that the airplane was at 13,000 ft msl, 1,000 ft above their assigned altitude. The pilot responded that they were correcting their altitude and that the airplane had lost GPS capability. The pilot stated they would need a heading

> About 0005 the ARTCC operations supervisor contacted [the military] to stop jamming and at 0007:34 ADS-B data recording returned to 2-3 second intervals.

> The flight crew again reported they “[have] a visual on Ruidoso” at 0008:30 and that they could “go visual.”

> About 0010, the ARTCC operations supervisor informed [the military] that the airplane was on a visual approach and that they could resume jamming.

> The airplane impacted terrain about 250 ft southwest of the last recorded data point at an elevation of about 9,950 ft, and about 730 ft east and 230 ft below the Capitan Mountains Summit Radio Facility, located at an elevation of about 10,180 ft.

The image of the map from the report really helps me understand the path. It seems like the aircraft began visual approach and didn't know where it was, or didn't know about the mountain.

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

#45

Post by bdavbdav »

It feels like if you know how far away the strip is (sounds like they did), and can get a bearing on it, they should be all set… with no GPS they should presumably have had even stronger eyes on the charts.

Back when i used to sail, taking bearings with a sighting compass on two points on land / two buoys always gave you a fairly accurate position. Not sure if there is a sighting compass equivalent with elevation angle too on planes?

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

#46

Post by brainlessdev »

The animation at the top is worryingly misleading. The airplane that crashed was a Beechcraft twin turboprop, and the plane maneuvered a couple of times before crashing. It had 4 people inside it.

The animation uses what looks like an airliner, and shows the jamming as a sort of bubble that directly sends the airplane into a crash.

I found it disturbing when I looked at it, it does not represent the story well, and I think that's irresponsible.

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

#47

Post by lbriner »

K0balt wrote: post #17

GPS is not essential to air navigation. It’s nice to have, and there are some approaches that legally require it to be operational in order to fly them (IFR procedures) but aviation has other systems in place to guide aircraft under conditions where visual flight navigation is impossible. In this case, IMHO, the pilots had become complacent and lax in their navigational rigor because of the fact that GPS makes a lot…

This was the partial cause of Air France 447.

Pilots were so used to "the plane won't make a mistake" that they were not aware/not trained properly about things that are nothing to do with the FMS like frozen pitot tubes and also that the autopilot has a number of "modes" which mean you need to go back to basics like altitude, attitude and air speed.

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

#48

Post by ceejayoz »

jatora wrote: post #37
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]

HN threads on aviation are always a bit goofy to anyone who's actually flown a plane, yeah.

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

#49

Post by plorg »

sokoloff wrote: post #43
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a judgment issue more than a skill issue. GPS NOTAM'd as unreliable on a dark, moonless night? Fly the ILS approach (or fly a visual approach along the track of the ILS approach backing up your visual with the radio signals). That will give you terrain and obstacle clearance all along the route using locally generated navigation signals that will be entirely unaffected by GPS jamming. https://aeronav.faa.gov/…

Per other comments the ILS approach was not available due to the local weather service being NOTAM'd as unavailable, couldn't set local altitude. The judgment call was effectively whether to take the flight at all, as there was effectively no instrument approach available and the visual conditions precluded VFR.

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

#50

Post by lbriner »

lettergram wrote: post #33

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.

Air traffic control have a very specific remit and it isn't as comprehensive as people assume. You can have "no service", "radar service" and "full service" and what they will advise you about is limited, usually, to spacing or procedural errors like "you should be less than 220 knots".

A controller who has the capacity to spot something that seems off like a wrong heading or altitude might ask the plane if they are OK, but unless they are deviating from a flight plan in controlled airspace, they are more likely to assume VFR and pilot knows best.

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