Jason Myers

This piece from Futurism shouldn’t be making the rounds because it fundamentally misstates the findings of the NTSB preliminary report and attributes the recent loss of a King Air medevac near Ruidoso, NM to GPS jamming from the U.S. Army. This crew launched planning to either fly a visual approach on a zero illumination night in mountainous terrain or to fly one of two instrument approaches that weren’t authorized due to equipment outages. GPS jamming is common near some installations. It was noted in the NOTAMs this crew reviewed. They identified it during the flight and ATC requested the Army to shut down the jammer, which they did. Even after having received GPS interference the crew requested to fly the GPS based RNAV 24 approach. Why would you ask to fly an approach with equipment you just saw was unreliable? At night. In mountainous terrain. The crew then proceeded to call the field in sight and proceed visually with no instrument backup. They descended below a ridge line in the Capitan Mountains and impacted terrain. A tragic, yet classic, controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) scenario. IMO this flight should never have been dispatched. But given that it was, shooting a visual approach with no instrument backup at night is poor judgement. Even more so in mountainous terrain. This crew lacked the training and judgement to assess the situation and respond. The Futurism article is sensationalist and fundamentally misrepresents the sequence of events.