It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. And now we’re picking up the pieces.
Because a US cyberattack led to a deadly civilian plane crash.
Military GPS Jamming Test Linked to Medevac Crash That Killed All Four Aboard
A civilian medevac flight that took off from Roswell, New Mexico, this past May flew directly into a military training operation that disabled its navigation capabilities — and by the time the crew got their GPS back online, it was too late. The plane crashed into the Capitan Mountains, killing all four people on board instantly.
A Routine Flight Turns Fatal
The flight should have been an easy one: 60 miles from Roswell to Ruidoso to pick up a patient, flown by pilots who, though relatively new, were well-qualified. Captain Keelan Clark, 30, had earned his commercial pilot’s license a year and a half earlier, and first officer Ali Kawsara, 23, had previously worked cargo flights. Two nurses were also aboard. Medevac flights are often inherently riskier than most civilian flight operations, and this one ended in tragedy for everyone involved.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the role military GPS jamming may have played in the crash. Shortly after takeoff from Roswell airport, one of the pilots reported to an air traffic controller that they had lost GPS capability; three other aircraft crews reported similar problems. An air traffic controller asked the military at nearby White Sands Missile Range to pause its GPS interference testing. The military halted jamming for a few minutes but resumed after the controller reported the plane had a visual fix on its destination. The aircraft crashed five minutes later. The NTSB’s preliminary report does not state whether controllers informed the pilots of either the pause in jamming or its resumption.
Warning Signs Long Before the Crash
This marks the first time the NTSB has cited GPS jamming as a potential factor in an air-safety investigation, but White Sands has long been linked to disruptions in civilian aviation more than 500 kilometers around the base, reaching into neighboring states and even Mexico. The site is one of the Army’s primary centers for testing in GPS-denied environments and for developing its own jamming and spoofing technologies.
A previous investigation into GPS jamming had already documented worrying reports of near misses in the White Sands region, along with data showing aircraft flying off course, entering military airspace by accident, and losing their ability to navigate. Air traffic controllers responsible for the surrounding airspace had also reported becoming overworked during testing and expressed confusion over when they could request a “stop buzzer” — a temporary pause in jamming for safety reasons. One controller wrote in a 2021 anonymous safety report that requests to stop jamming were routinely refused: “Refusing to stop buzzer is commonplace.” Another controller warned in 2024, months before the fatal crash, that continued delays in halting jamming were “a danger to the flying public.”
According to one source familiar with the matter, FAA managers reportedly told controllers that pausing a GPS test at White Sands costs the military between $5 million and $10 million each time — a financial disincentive that safety advocates say may have contributed to the reluctance to halt testing when pilots reported trouble.
Aviation expert Juan Browne described the terrifying moment pilots in similar situations realize their instruments have failed them: “When those lights go out, man, you know you are in big trouble.”
Investigation Continues as Testing Resumes
Todd Humphreys, director of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, explained that some tests at White Sands involve spoofing GPS signals to generate inaccurate location data, prompting the Army to place powerful jammers at the range’s perimeter to drown out the spoofed signals and protect civilian aircraft from being misled. It is likely this “cover jamming” that the medevac plane and other aircraft experienced in May. “The jamming coming from White Sands is intense,” Humphreys said. “It goes all the way up to low Earth orbit and even affects satellites up there.”
The military does issue advance notices to warn pilots of upcoming tests, and backup systems exist for pilots and controllers to help cope with disruptions. Still, the number of aircraft affected by GPS signal loss nationwide doubled between 2021 and 2024, according to industry data, underscoring a growing tension between military testing needs and civilian aviation safety.
The NTSB generally aims to complete full investigations within two years, and the agency has cautioned it would be premature to characterize the significance of GPS jamming in the crash while it continues examining the aircraft, avionics, weather, and air traffic control data. In the meantime, GPS interference testing at White Sands has continued, with jamming scheduled for at least 12 days since the fatal crash in May.
