This was compounded by a high workload and high-stress situation. Landings and take-offs, in normal situations, are already quite hectic in the cockpit, which is why pilots practice the sterile cockpit rule, which avoids extraneous communications, at times like these. The loss of GPS signals also added to their stress, as they initially planned for an RNAV approach towards SRR. While this generally uses a combination of radio signals, it seems that their system primarily relied on GPS, which was inoperative at that time.
Aside from this, ATC also had a higher workload than usual, as they were assisting three other aircraft in the area that have been affected by the military operations. Although the military had temporarily ceased their activities, it seems that the pilots were not aware of this and elected to proceed visually instead of relying on either RNAV or the alternative instrument landing system (ILS).
We still don’t have the NTSB’s final report, so we cannot definitely say what the ultimate cause of the crash. But it seems that if the military wasn’t running a GPS jamming exercise at that time, the flight would have used RNAV from departure all the way to SRR, instead of relying on radar vectors and, ultimately, VFR.
This isn’t the first time that military activities have been linked to a crash in the U.S in recent history. Just last year, a tragedy unfolded at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when a regional jet carrying 64 passengers and crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on an exercise, resulting in 67 casualties. GPS jamming is also a frequent occurrence in several hotspots in the world, like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even the South China Sea, which has affected airliners.
But aside from civilian airliners, many drones, especially those used for long-range attacks, also use GPS. While militaries have been developing new technologies like microwaves and lasers to shoot down these drones, one of the most cost-effective technologies that is readily available today is GPS jamming. It’s probably because of this that Russia has started putting magnetic compasses on some of their drones to help with navigation.
Even though GPS jamming might sound alarming, pilots have been flying around the world for decades, even before it came into widespread use. These include VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range) beacons that send out signals unaffected by GPS jamming to help pilots determine where they are, ILS, which safely guides pilots towards a runway up to a certain distance, and more.
However, it seems that the sudden loss of GPS caught the pilots of the Beechcraft unaware. This, combined with the lack of visual references, a sudden change of plans from RNAV to ILS approach, and the decision to fly visually, probably led to the crash. The military’s GPS jamming exercise didn’t directly cause the crash, but it was likely the first event in the “Swiss cheese” model that ultimately caused the accident.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He\u2019s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he\u2019s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
helper800 What a needless tragedy… Regardless of the classification level or need of these military GPS jamming exercises, there must be some minimum formal coordination and scheduling process in place to ensure that aviation is not compromised in such a way. Safety as an afterthought is deadly. Reply
PEnns Let me guess…..nobody was held responsible?? George Carlin was right. Reply
torbjorn.lindgren helper800 said: What a needless tragedy… Regardless of the classification level or need of these military GPS jamming exercises, there must be some minimum formal coordination and scheduling process in place to ensure that aviation is not compromised in such a way. Safety as an afterthought is deadly. The military did exactly what you're asking for! The GPS jamming was announced in advance (NOTAM) and that NOTAM was in the pilots briefing material and when they ran into issues ATC called up the military which suspended the jamming despite not being legally required (it's not supposed to be safety critical). The military did resume the GPS jamming after ATC told them the flight was now VFR where GPS jamming should be irrelevant rather than merely not safety critical. Switching to Visual Flight Rules (VFR) was an active choice by the pilots but meant the pilot took responsibility for flying visually, this requires strictly adhering to published minimas. And for some reason they must have been way below these minimum altitudes but at this point we don't know why. If they had stayed in IFR they would have been delayed a few minutes until the military turned off the GPS and could then have done their originally planned approach. They probably didn't know that though. Yes, the GPS jamming removed one "safety net" but there should have been plenty of other safety nets. I expect it'll get listed as one of several contributing factors, I'm also wondering if the C90 flight instrumentation may need some revision (it honestly sounds like it may be overly reliant on GPS to the point of ignoring other instruments it has like the altimeter). But we won't know what really went wrong and what needs to be fixed until the final report which probably will take about a year (they usually do). There may well be fixes and changes well before that if there's important fixes though. Reply
JamesJones44 Radio based IFR and VFR are standard ways to operate both civilian and commercial aircraft even today. Things like WAAS make it easier, but other forms of navigation (like VFR) are required to operate aircraft. It sounds like the pilot may not have been familiar with the required altitudes and approach patterns for the runway Reply
gamerk316 torbjorn.lindgren said: Switching to Visual Flight Rules (VFR) was an active choice by the pilots but meant the pilot took responsibility for flying visually, this requires strictly adhering to published minimas. And for some reason they must have been way below these minimum altitudes but at this point we don't know why. I can't speak to how civilian flights are briefed, but commercial ones absolutely are briefed on what the minimums are during approach at various locations along the flight path, and those are designed specifically to avoid accidents exactly like this one. And yes, loosing GPS by itself shouldn't cause accidents like this. But it's also valid to say GPS jamming shouldn't be performed near commercial airports (even tiny ones) as part of training exercises. Reply
chaos215bar2 Even though GPS jamming might sound alarming, pilots have been flying around the world for decades, even before it came into widespread use. The important question is whether pilots are required to regularly train with GPS disabled. If not, alternate systems won't mean much during a real emergency when cognitive load is high and pilots are likely to default to what they know best. torbjorn.lindgren said: The military did resume the GPS jamming after ATC told them the flight was now VFR where GPS jamming should be irrelevant rather than merely not safety critical. Sounds like a bad call on the part of ATC. If you know the flight was having trouble earlier and it's minutes from landing, why risk it? Military exercises can wait — especially one that amounts to a live fire exercise extending well into civilian airspace. While yes, you can say the pilots should have known better, the reality is they didn't. And GPS-based systems could potentially have saved the day. Reply
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