NM lawmakers demand answers from Pentagon after fatal medical flight crash and wildfire

By Jesse Jones, The Paper. — New Mexico’s congressional delegation, led by Sen. Martin Heinrich, demands answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after military GPS jamming allegedly caused a medical plane crash, killing four crew members and igniting a 32,000-acre wildfire that cost taxpayers $37.7 million.

Just before midnight May 13, a medical flight left Roswell for Sierra Blanca Regional Airport in Ruidoso to pick up a patient headed to Albuquerque. The plane crashed into the Capitan Mountains, killing two pilots and two flight nurses, and igniting a wildfire. According to the lawmakers’ letter, the aircraft overshot its landing pattern after GPS signals were disrupted during NAVFEST, an annual U.S. Air Force electronic warfare exercise at White Sands Missile Range that tests GPS jamming and trains military forces to operate without navigation signals. The resulting wildfire in Lincoln National Forest burned 31,860 acres over 3 weeks, requiring more than 1,000 personnel, 7 helicopters and multiple air tankers to contain it while forcing rural evacuations.

In their letter, lawmakers said the crash marks the first known case in which U.S. military GPS jamming contributed to a civilian aviation disaster. The delegation urges the Defense Department to cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) ongoing investigation, compensate victims’ families, and reimburse state and local agencies for emergency response costs. “If the DoD had not been jamming GPS in the region,” the lawmakers wrote, “it is very likely that the crash would have never occurred, four people would still be alive, and this wildfire would not have started.”

Lawmakers warned that as electronic warfare grows more routine in national defense, military operations could pose increasing risks to civilian flights without stronger coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration and new safety measures. The delegation also asked the Pentagon to disclose whether GPS jamming has affected other civilian flights and to collaborate with federal safety officials on new emergency protocols.