Exclusive: Crash reportedly marks the first time Pentagon GPS jamming has caused or contributed to the crash of a civilian aircraft
U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and the entire New Mexico congressional delegation are demanding answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after revelations that a Department of Defense GPS jamming exercise contributed to a medical plane crash that killed four crew members and ignited a wildfire that burned nearly 32,000 acres.
In a letter obtained exclusively by MeidasTouch, Heinrich was joined by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury, and Gabe Vasquez, all Democrats, in pressing Hegseth for accountability over the Pentagon’s role in the May 13 crash in Lincoln County.
Just before midnight that night, a Beechcraft King Air medical transport plane carrying two pilots and two flight nurses took off from Roswell bound for Sierra Blanca Regional Airport in Ruidoso to pick up a patient for transport to Albuquerque. According to the lawmakers, the aircraft’s GPS was jammed by a scheduled military test event in the area, causing the routine medical flight to overshoot its landing pattern by 10 miles. At 12:15 a.m. on May 14, the plane slammed into the side of the Capitan Mountains, killing all four crew members instantly and sparking a wildfire that burned for three weeks before crews could contain it.
The resulting blaze scorched 31,860 acres in the Capitan Mountain Wilderness area of the Lincoln National Forest. At its peak, more than 1,000 personnel battled the fire using seven helicopters, bulldozers, water tenders, and fixed-wing air tankers. It was the first fire of the season in New Mexico to require a Complex Incident Management Team and one of only two such complex fires the state has seen this year. While no structures were lost, evacuation orders stayed in place for weeks, and taxpayers are on the hook for an estimated $37.7 million in fire suppression costs.
“By any account, this crash was tragic,” the lawmakers wrote to Hegseth. “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.”
The delegation warned that as drone warfare and electronic warfare become increasingly central to U.S. national defense, the risk of military and contractor operations interfering with civilian aviation is only likely to grow. They argued it’s critical to fully understand what happened on May 13 and 14 and what steps could have prevented the tragedy.
“If the DoD had not been jamming GPS in the region at the time of this crash it is very likely that the crash would have never occurred, four people would still be alive, and this wildfire would not have started,” the lawmakers wrote. “We owe those impacted by DoD’s actions transparency and action.”
The letter urges Hegseth and the Pentagon to fully cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Board’s ongoing investigation into the crash, to work urgently with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop protocols preventing similar incidents in the future, and to implement any recommendations that come out of the NTSB’s findings once complete.
Beyond those requests, the delegation is pressing the Pentagon for direct answers to several pointed questions: whether the DoD will compensate the victims’ families; whether it will reimburse federal, state, county, and local agencies for the resources spent responding to the crash and wildfire; and whether the department is aware of any other civilian aircraft incidents tied to GPS jamming connected to the NAVFEST exercise in May 2026, or to similar military jamming activities elsewhere in the country, before or after the New Mexico crash.
The full letter, addressed directly to Hegseth, closes with the same blunt assessment lawmakers gave in their public statement: the crash and the wildfire it triggered were preventable, and the families and communities affected deserve both transparency and accountability from the department responsible.
As of publication, the Department of Defense has not issued a public response to the delegation’s letter.