A medevac flight lost GPS during a military jamming exercise and flew into a mountain

4 deaths · died when a medevac flight lost GPS during a military jamming exercise and struck a mountain · installedmeasured · IEEE Spectrum, "Officials Probe Army GPS Jamming in Fatal Air Crash", 2026-07-22 — Source states "The two pilots and two nurses on board died" - four fatalities, May 2026. Verified against IEEE Spectrum because the card's own source (wired.com) could not be fetched. The 12,000 hecta

Four died in New Mexico in May. An NTSB preliminary report places White Sands jamming as active at the time — the first known US case of its kind.

A Beechcraft C-90 air ambulance flew into terrain in the Capitan Mountains near Ruidoso, New Mexico, shortly after midnight on May 14, killing both pilots and two flight nurses. The aircraft was flying from Roswell to collect a patient. A National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report finds that military GPS jamming originating from White Sands Missile Range was active at the time. The crash also started a wildfire that burned thousands of acres.

The sequence reported is that the crew radioed air traffic control during the initial climb to report losing GPS navigation. Controllers asked the military to stop jamming; the military paused for a few minutes and then resumed after a controller reported the aircraft had a visual fix on its destination. In low visibility, the crew had no way to see the ridge between them and the runway. At least three other aircraft reported navigation disruption during the same period.

This belongs under SECURITY because it is a failure of shared infrastructure rather than of a vehicle. Satellite positioning is the substrate under aviation, freight, agriculture, emergency response and most autonomous systems this project tracks — it is treated as free and always available, and its availability is a policy decision made by a party with other priorities. This is reported as the first known instance of military jamming bringing down a civilian aircraft in US airspace.

A preliminary NTSB report establishes what was happening, not legal cause. The final determination will take months, and the report does not by itself assign responsibility.

Source: Hacker News