Earlier quoted context omitted.
They requested navigation assistance ATC could not promptly provide. I strongly agree the pilot in command could've done better, but if ATC was overloaded, they should've promptly communicated that to manage expectations that immediate help was not forthcoming. An aircraft covers a lot of ground "in a couple of minutes." (assuming ~120-200 knots) https://www.airresearch.com/Pilots/AIM-08/Chap6/aim0602.html > a. Radar…
>(my flavor of autism includes aggressive pattern matching) This gave me a smile. I've never heard of pattern matching being described as aggressive.
Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
141–150 of 295 posts
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would they take off if they knew GPS would be jammed midway through the flight? Had they known they wouldn't be able to rely on GPS, all that back and forth with ATC would not be needed, and they'd already have a plan B and a plan C for navigating. It's unfortunately all slices of swiss cheese aligned perfectly, but I'd still blame the military for poking extra holes on the GPS slice.
> Would they take off if medevac flight - there was probably some urgency.
And I am happy to be corrected but as I understand it, in the rural west more medical transport than you might think is by air. Distances are large, and population is sparse. You can cover more area with the same number of medics using a few airplanes instead of ground ambulances. So not all air ambulance service is critically urgent, unlike what we are used to in more populated areas.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was training 20yr ago we practiced stalls, spin recovery, simulated random engine-out scenarios.. do they not do that anymore? I was pretty confident barring some catastrophic mechanical failure I could probably get it on the ground or into the water (or trees) in one piece. The big question remains though: what now? If you're knocked unconscious (likely--lap belt, big flat instrument panel at face height) the…
Mechanical failure and engine outs will always rely on muscle memory and training imho, but I strongly presume everything else is going to be "Push red button to survive, switching to autonomy." Garmin Is Automating In-Flight Emergencies (Autoland, Smart Glide, ESP) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996106 - July 2026 (0 comments) The accountability problem exposed by the first Garmin Autoland deployment - htt…
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#144could spread-spectrum GPS solve this or would military just jam all frequencies how about ANS (aka R2-D2) the 1960s version of GPS that used stars instead of stars, preload all the known positions of LEO constellations can they put this on a single chip 60 years later? * https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-r2-d2-the-sr-71-as...
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't know how it failed. Maybe it displayed their lat/long perfectly but at the wrong altitude. We think of failure as obvious, but it is often nearly impossible to tell unless you are looking for it.
GPS is a 3D measurement.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess GPS jamming was not routine for them. Had they been aware of any NOTAM regarding GPS interference, they'd be prepared, and, like you said, would have VOR setup prior to leaving the ground.
If you are a pilot and can't handle GPS dropping out, or the failure of any other single navigation aid, you should not be flying.
If GPS signal is sufficiently degraded or lost, TAWS is probably unavailable (highly dependent on what navigation system is on board). TAWS might have saved them. But needing TAWS implies loss of situational awareness.
This flight crashed in the mountains ~6 miles north of the ILS 24 approach course. At ~12 miles out on the approach course, the ILS course width is ~1 mile. A full needle deflection translates to 1/2 mile off the course. A flight is not established on the approach course with a full needle deflection. Course intercept with localizer or VOR is basic instrument work - GPS not required.
The flight requested ILS 24, later they indicated airport in sight, requested and received a clearance for a visual approach. That means pilots have full responsibility for terrain and obstruction clearance. The visual approach requirement is to maintain contact with with airport.
It seems to me they went off course, by a lot, for reasons I'm not clear on, and then descended prematurely into hostile terrain at night, which is likely why they lost visual contact with the airport. The terrain blocked their view and by the time they realized they were descending into hostile terrain they crashed.
If that's what happened, GPS signal loss is perhaps an instigating source of distraction and confusion but I do not see how it's a primary factor. If the signal becomes degraded, navigation should indicate it (auditory and visual) and that source is ignored entirely. Falling back to ground based navigation should be familiar, it doesn't need to be as precise as GPS, the instrument approach procedure has terrain clearance baked into it.
Best practice is to follow the instrument approach procedure to the final approach fix, then do the visual approach - especially at night which many have argued constitutes instrument flight conditions - mountains will be invisible. Pitch black on black.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a pilot and can't handle GPS dropping out, or the failure of any other single navigation aid, you should not be flying.
Highly dependent on weather and the complexity of the approach. Clear skies and VFR? I would agree. Heavy weather and an instrument approach or confounding factors? Not accurate imho. > At midnight on May 14, eight minutes after Clark and Kawsara took off from Roswell, they told Albuquerque Center that they’d lost their GPS. Unable to navigate on their own, they asked that the controller give them a heading—a magneti…
Relying on a tower in instrument conditions because GPS failed is unacceptable, because every other GPS user is in the same boat.
If you’re flying IFR, you should have a working set of instruments and be using them. Why didn’t these pilots have their VORs tuned in for positioning?
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> General aviation (GA) is significantly less safe than commercial air travel Since I've been paying attention from the peanut gallery, watching Blancolirio videos, etc. I would never fly on a small private plane. Seems like once a week there is a crash of a small GA craft somewhere, often with fatalities, due to loss of control (i.e. nothing wrong with the aircraft). Pilots seem to become overconfident or complacent…
When I was training 20yr ago we practiced stalls, spin recovery, simulated random engine-out scenarios.. do they not do that anymore? I was pretty confident barring some catastrophic mechanical failure I could probably get it on the ground or into the water (or trees) in one piece. The big question remains though: what now? If you're knocked unconscious (likely--lap belt, big flat instrument panel at face height) the…
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was training 20yr ago we practiced stalls, spin recovery, simulated random engine-out scenarios.. do they not do that anymore? I was pretty confident barring some catastrophic mechanical failure I could probably get it on the ground or into the water (or trees) in one piece. The big question remains though: what now? If you're knocked unconscious (likely--lap belt, big flat instrument panel at face height) the…
Mechanical failure and engine outs will always rely on muscle memory and training imho, but I strongly presume everything else is going to be "Push red button to survive, switching to autonomy." Garmin Is Automating In-Flight Emergencies (Autoland, Smart Glide, ESP) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996106 - July 2026 (0 comments) The accountability problem exposed by the first Garmin Autoland deployment - htt…
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#150> It's worth taking a closer look at what happened last May. While the Ruidoso crash was the first fatal accident in the US known to be linked to electronic warfare, there’s no reason to think it will be the last.
> Even absent GPS jamming, medevac is one of the most dangerous categories of civil aviation. (Kreindler, a law firm specializing in air crash litigation, says that medevac flights have an accident rate more similar to combat flying than to civil aviation.) Flights are often organized on short notice, and they fly into airstrips that might be unfamiliar to the flight crew, and because human lives are at stake, there is an incentive to fly when weather conditions are marginal.
> Some of those factors were at play on the night of May 13. At 11 pm, the crew was notified that they had to fly to Ruidoso to pick up a patient and bring them to Albuquerque. The pilots were captain Keelan Clark, aged 30, and first officer Ali Kawsara, aged 23. Clark had gotten his commercial pilot’s license just a year and a half before; he’d been promoted from first officer to captain the previous month. Kawsara had just two months on the job. He’d only worked cargo jobs before this one.