A rehash of the paywalled Wired article:

* https://futurism.com/science-energy/us-military-gps-jamming-...

The preliminary NTSB report: https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...

I have absolutely no love for the US Army under its current Secretary of "war", but here the problem was with the air ambulance pilot(s). Sorry to blame people who died, who do important service for remote places under hard time constraints, but there has been fundamental errors on their side:

https://bsky.app/profile/mikeblack114.bsky.social/post/3mrux...

Blancolirio (YouTube aviation reporter and commercial pilot) analysis:

https://youtu.be/Dcyup4xVQuM?is=n0w5_tLCxEkYGtt9

The final information on the crash almost reads like they hit the very top of the mountain - according to NTSB, they were about 200-250 ft from the summit, so it is possible they did still have visual with the airport until right before the impact. Whether or not GPS could've helped with this, I'm not sure - it might've allowed them to see where they were relative to the mountain better, since it was the middle of the night and so they probably couldn't see the mountain very well..

When I used to fly in Florida in the 2005-2015ish timeframe, NOTAMs for GPS interference (it didn't say that exactly but that's what it meant) were an everyday occurrence along my path, it became boilerplate. I experienced it a few times. One moment the GPS thinks you're plodding along next to Ocala, next moment it thinks I've teleported a thousand miles away, and then it'd just quit.

But that's what we train for. That's why aircraft and pilots have redundancy to work around any single possible point of failure and why you practice it until it becomes natural. Because of the NOTAM I'd already have a VOR tuned in, and once the GPS went inop I just fine tuned it to get a radial fix on the VOR. Also tried to never lose my bearings with my MK I Eyeballs either. No big deal.

I feel bad for everyone that lost their lives here, but this is why competence is critical. There's a litany of errors the pilots made. And the article tries to pin a bit on the controller, but no, ultimate responsibility is on the pilot in command, FAR/AIM is clear on that.

If these allegedly instrument rated pilots had been properly drilled by their CFI's and properly grilled during reviews and such this should've been an easy flight.

Also, "just ask Kennedy". Wired bringing that into the conversation is perhaps relevant but not in the way I think they intended. JFK Jr lacked basic airmanship skills. His aircraft was 100% functional until the moment it impacted the ocean.

Some professions simply can't be go-along-to-get-along social clubs. Safety culture centered on competence and performance is key.

GPS is not essential to air navigation. It’s nice to have, and there are some approaches that legally require it to be operational in order to fly them (IFR procedures) but aviation has other systems in place to guide aircraft under conditions where visual flight navigation is impossible.

In this case, IMHO, the pilots had become complacent and lax in their navigational rigor because of the fact that GPS makes a lot of the slightly less automated systems unnecessary, and people get used to that workflow.

We have a competency crisis that will only get worse and worse. I myself am guilty of it. Modern life is too comfortable, there is no need to fight through and put in the hours to be an expert when you can do 50% and get 90% of the paychecke.

Pilots train to navigate without GPS. Or, rather, they should...