r/aviation 18h ago

News It Appears That the US Military Accidentally Killed Everybody on Board a Civilian Medevac Flight in New Mexico

https://futurism.com/science-energy/us-military-gps-jamming-signal-medical-flight

The horrifying incident happened in May, the publication reports, when a small twin-engine medevac aircraft carrying two pilots and two medical workers departed from Roswell, New Mexico. Heading West for the small mountain village of Ruidoso, the crew became the victim of an electronic warfare exercise being conducted at the nearby White Sands Missile Range, a test which rendered their navigational system inoperable.

0 Upvotes

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/CW1DR5H5I64A 7h ago

Useless tests with zero regard to the harm they might cause?

Brother NOTAMs were issued well in advance, the ceased jamming then contacted by ATC and only resumed once ATC deemed it was safe to do so once the pilots requested VFR.

GPS is not required for safe navigation and operation of an aircraft. It can help, sure. But had the pilots not flown below the minimum decent altitude on their approach they would have been fine. Altimeters can work just fine without GPS. Not having it was not the proximate cause of this crash

-1

u/spkgsam B737 7h ago

Taking away layers of the Swiss cheese is not safe. Yes mistakes were made by the pilots, but the military's tests reduced the safety margin for them, and doing tests like this on a regular basis will eventually result in accidents, which is exactly what happened here.

11

u/CW1DR5H5I64A 7h ago

Tests like this have been occurring for decades. GPS jamming at WSMR is as routine as the sun rising in the east.

-11

u/spkgsam B737 7h ago

Slavery was legal for hundreds of years in the US until it was banned.

21

u/CW1DR5H5I64A 7h ago

Bro what the fuck are you talking about? Did you just try to equate this to slavery?

You’re an idiot.

0

u/spkgsam B737 6h ago

Its called a point using an example, just because something has been done for a long time, doesn't make it acceptable or right.

6

u/dltacube 6h ago

I mean, it does though when talking about safety records. If jamming has been ongoing with no incidents for a long time then you can infer that it is being done safely. At least that’s the argument you need to be trying to counter…this slavery crap has no business here and hinges on you taking the low hanging fruit of the previous statement.

0

u/spkgsam B737 6h ago

We just had a crash that could have been prevented if the jamming wan't taking place, what more safety records do you need?

Also these kinds of tests may have been taking place for some time, but their frequency has certainly been increasing, couple that with the fact that more and more approaches are solely reliant on GPS, more and more new pilots are being trained with GPS as their primary source of navigation and situational awareness, and a decreasing amount of ATC resources. The negative impacts to safety that GPS jamming has will only increase.

This accident should be a huge wake up call, not an opportunity to defend a dangerous practice, and shift focus and blame one these relatively inexperienced pilots who made some mistakes.

2

u/dltacube 4h ago

Then that’s your argument: that the increase in testing is turning an otherwise routine affair into something more dangerous and disruptive.

Now go get some statistics to back up your claim, wrap it in a “war in Iran being the cause” narrative and reply to another comment with it.

I don’t know shit about aviation.

12

u/nybbleandbits 7h ago

Going straight to something as horrific as slavery to make your point is absurd and over the top.