Civilian Medevac Crash Likely Linked to Military GPS Jamming Exercise

GPS was opened up for civilian use after the 1983 Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, partly to keep civilian aircraft from being mistaken for threats. But a U.S. military electronic warfare exercise likely played a role in the crash of a midnight medevac flight in May.

A Beechcraft King Air carrying two pilots and two nurses crashed into a mountainside in New Mexico while flying to pick up a patient. The crew became disoriented after losing GPS. About 100 miles west, the Air Force was running NAVFEST at White Sands Missile Range, an annual multi-week exercise focused on navigation disruption and GPS-denied training. The FAA had warned that GPS could be affected up to 400 miles away, according to Wired.

Captain Keelan Clark, who had held his commercial license for just 18 months, and first officer Ali Kawsara were flying under instrument flight rules in darkness, relying on headings from Albuquerque air traffic control. They overshot the landing pattern for Sierra Blanca Regional Airport by 10 miles. Spotting the airport's lights, they told ATC they would attempt a visual approach, but they couldn't see the Capitan Mountains intersecting their descent slope. The plane struck the mountain, killing everyone aboard.

The crash may be the first in the United States in which GPS jamming contributed to a civilian aircraft accident. Electronic warfare is increasingly catching civilians in the crossfire: two years ago, more than 46,000 planes reported GPS issues over the Baltic Sea, widely blamed on Russian military systems in Kaliningrad. More recently, university researchers identified Russian satellites as sources of GPS interference in Europe.