New Mexico lawmakers are demanding answers from the Pentagon about a civilian medevac plane that crashed near a military base earlier this year while base personnel were allegedly testing GPS jamming technology.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, along with U.S. Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez issued a joint statement on Thursday, urging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense to cooperate with investigations and develop systems to prevent it from happening again.
“By any account, this crash was tragic,” the delegation, all Democrats, wrote. “While this is reportedly the first time GPS jamming activities by the U.S. military have caused or contributed to the crash of a civilian plane, that does little to comfort the families of those lost in that crash or impacted by the wildfire it triggered.”
On May 14, a Beech C9 twin-engine plane left Roswell Air Center. The medevac plane, carrying two pilots and two flight nurses, was traveling west to Ruidoso, 75 miles away, to pick up a patient. It went down in the towering Capitan Mountains.
Specialists with the federal National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the causes. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment, citing the investigation’s ongoing nature, emphasizing that specialists have not yet identified the causes.
Yet NTSB and public flight data have stoked speculation about flight safety and whether the deaths, and a large wildfire sparked by the crash, were avoidable. The pilots were flying by sight — as opposed to the more common GPS — through a moonless sky because testing at the nearby White Sands Missile Range interfered with the plane’s GPS technology.
In their letter, the New Mexico lawmakers, citing a preliminary report from the NTSB and reporting from Wired, said, “because the aircraft’s GPS was jammed by U.S. military activities in the region, the flight overshot their landing pattern by 10 miles,” leading to the crash.
The letter to Pentagon leader Pete Hegseth asks military officials to work with the FAA to develop systems and protocols that would prevent similar accidents and to provide critical information to the NTSB to look into “what could have been done to prevent the accident.”
Robert Katz, a pilot and flight instructor who looked at the data associated with the flight, told the Mountain West News Bureau at KANW public radio that NTSB investigations tend to be thorough.
“They look at, ‘How did the airplane end up where it did?’” he said. “‘How did all this begin? What transpired to get the airplane where it was?’”
Katz notes that a handful of military bases may also conduct similar testing, with the potential for interfering with aviators’ GPS.
Officials at White Sands declined to answer questions or comment on the case.
And the Department of Defense has not yet responded to a request for comment to the lawmakers’ letter and what kinds of protocols currently exist to prevent such crashes.
Katz, speculating, said that pilots should be familiar with GPS jamming, especially in New Mexico. He said the medevac pilots could have made a request that the military cease testing until their flight passed, but did not appear to do so.
Katz also said pilots did not seem to use other safety measures available to them, likely navigating by eye, looking for lights, like those in Ruidoso, their destination.
“The facilities to conduct this flight safely existed, were intact, were operating normally and were not properly utilized by this crew because they did not prepare before they departed,” he alleged.
Katz also said pilots could have also used radio beacons to navigate along an alternative route to the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, a path that would have kept them clear of the Capitan Mountains ridgeline at an elevation of more than 10,000 feet.
When the flight crew experienced GPS jamming, they reported problems to air traffic control.
An NTSB investigation can take up to two years. It is expected to examine pilots’ training and history, the operator’s safety culture, and maintenance records for the aircraft and its engines.
Katz said that the review will likely matter far beyond one crash in New Mexico. GPS jamming, he pointed out, is increasingly common in U.S. airspace. Pilots and operators can learn from the tragedy and strengthen training, emergency and navigation skills.
Figures cited from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association show reported GPS disruption events in the continental U.S. climbed from four in 2020 to 50 in 2024. Forty incidents were recorded in 2025.
In a statement released May by Generations Jets and Trans Aero MedEvac, the crew members lost were identified as pilots Keelan Clark andAli Kawsara and flight nurses Sarah Clark and Jamie Novick. Trans Aero MedEvac and Generation Jets released a joint statement regarding the deaths of their team members.
“Today, both organizations continue to mourn the loss of four extraordinary crew members,” the statement said. “Those we lost were more than coworkers. They were family, caregivers, aviators, teammates, and friends who dedicated their lives to serving others with compassion, professionalism, and courage.”
Contacted for comment, a spokesperson for Generations Jets said, “As the incident is still under investigation, we have no comment.”