What I did read is that a young inexperienced pilot was way too reliant on technology.
Issue was on pilot training and the company that put 2 inexperienced pilot together.
Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
241–250 of 295 posts
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's probably about right to compare the risk profile to motorcycle riding. I'd say it's probably not, many motorcycle riders deliberately choose a motorcycle because it's "fun", meaning they go around speeding on purpose, so the crash stats are very negatively skewed by those deliberately behaving recklessly, just how driving crash stats are skewed by people driving under the influence. That's a bit of a different…
There are classes of motorcycle accidents that are not a function of rider speeding or otherwise being careless. The one that took the life of a coworker is described as follows: the motorcycle is travelling on a country two-lane road, trees alongside, sunny day, and a vehicle comes from the other direction and turns left across the path of the motorcycle. At closing speed over 160 kph (80- 100 kph in opposite direct…
This is extremely common in urban areas as well, at lower speed. Not necessarily less fatal. The thing that seems similar between flying and riding motorcycles is that even a "small" crash is likelier than you want to have extreme consequences. Airplanes and motorcycles are not made to crash. Cars are.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#243Earlier 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…
The "skill issue" is that they chose to press on instead of returning to base. Yes, the jamming was a factor, but making a decision to fly a visual into field surrounded by mountains at night is a bad call.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#244If the sky was clear, as the article states, then lack of GPS is not a good enough excuse for a trained pilot to crash into a mountain, unless the cockpit has no windows. It's not fun to lose GPS, but, a trained pilot ought to have been able to handle this situation fine. All instruments can fail, but weather notwithstanding, no instruments are required to land a plane back down on a runway (implied in my statement i…
> If the sky was clear, as the article states, then lack of GPS is not a good enough excuse for a trained pilot to crash into a mountain, unless the cockpit has no windows.
I have thousands of hours as pilot in command and have worked as a professional pilot.
Unlit terrain is invisible at night. The moon was new. They did not see, and could not have seen, the mountains.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol the very first paragraph of my comment. But yeah, IFR is getting more dependent on gps approaches… which is incredibly stupid because it becomes trivial to disrupt air navigation. It’s a bit better with newer chipsets that support GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou… but I’d venture that when the military is jamming I’d does them all. I can buy a jammer that will take out GPS over about a kilometer for less than $1…
I believe that their are no multi-GNSS receivers certified for aviation, so Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou are out.
Sure, but every pilot has an iPad, basically, and an iPad with foreflight might have saved their lives. You even get synthetic vision.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#246Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#247I run GPSJAM.org, have been studying and tracking the effects of GPS interference on aviation for the past 5 years, and I was a source for this article. I'm not a pilot and I don't work for any aviation agency. I'm very curious to see what the final NTSB report says, but their preliminary report along with commentary from other analysts seems to show that this was a crew that made bad choices and died because of it.…
Another thing to add to all this is FAA has been steadily removing from service non-GPS navigation aids.
Right? "The government" as a whole can't have it both ways. Eliminate older navigation systems because GPS is everywhere, AND run around jamming GPS.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be safe. The ILS projects a localizer signal (left/right deviation compared to runway alignment) and glideslope signal (up/down deviation versus the intended flight path, usually about 3°). The only thing you need a precision altimeter setting for is to determine the safe decision altitude (point at which you need to see the runway environment to continue, else initiate a missed approach) and a fairly theore…
Not true. You also need an accurate altimeter to fly the intermediate segment, as well as the missed approach segment. There are mountains under the obstacle clearance surfaces on both segments. That is why this ILS procedure is explicitly not authorized when the local altimeter setting isn't available.
Any altimeter setting in the vicinity is going to be close enough in this scenario. It's still a visual approach, you can remain well above terrain until you're inside the GS service volume. I think it's an OK way to get yourself out of a crappy situation.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
More than one thing can be true. Flying into the side of a mountain is an error by the pilot (obviously). It can also be true that if GPS wasn't being jammed it wouldn't have happened.
To bring it full circle, it can also be true that it wouldn't have happened to a more competent pilot under the same circumstances. Per the parent commenter's point, it doesn't hurt anything to bring that perspective.
That is probably true but I also think it's unfair to blame the pilot. This was a last minute flight to a small airport for a medevac. It's easy to say that as pilot it's ultimately their responsibility to make a safe flight. It's quite another to let someone die because you're worried about making an unfamiliar night flight without Gps.
Re: Civilian plane crash in New Mexico tied to military GPS blocking
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
You care enough to comment about it and ask them not to do it again because of, not only your feelings, but others too.
I care about keeping the discourse free from these virtue-signalling disclaimers, not about whatever you think you need to signal about. I consider it irrelevant whether you like or dislike this or that politician in this context and would prefer not to have such likes or dislikes interspersed between statements of fact. Let the facts speak for themselves and let polarising statements about politics and politicians be limited to discussions which actually concern such politics and politicians. That used to be how we discussed back in the day and it can be how we discuss in the future.