- The claim that the U.S. military was responsible for four deaths in the crash of a private medical transport plane in New Mexico in May 2026 is still under investigation.
- It was true that the military was testing technology that jammed GPS signals at the time of the crash, based on FAA communications on the day of the crash and the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report.
- However, no evidence has come to light definitively confirming or disproving that the signal jamming was the sole or partial cause of the crash.
Posts claiming that the U.S. military was responsible for four deaths in the crash of a private medical transport plane in May 2026 circulated online in August 2026.
The claim first appeared in June 2026 and gained steam after Wired reported on it in late July, followed by Futurism in early August, eventually spreading to social media, where people shared it widely with comments like, “How is this story not all over the place?”
As the rumor’s popularity grew, Snopes was inundated with requests from readers to look into the veracity of the claim that the military was at fault for the crash.
It was true that the U.S. military was testing technology that jammed GPS signals at the time of the crash, based on the available FAA communications on the day of the crash and the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report.
However, no evidence has come to light definitively confirming or disproving that the signal jamming was the sole or partial cause of the crash, so we have left this claim unrated.
The sequence of events as reported began on May 14, when “a small medical plane” crashed in New Mexico, killing all four people aboard.
The crash sparked a wildfire that triggered evacuations in the area days later, as reported by The Associated Press. The fire burned more than 31,000 acres before reaching 100% containment on June 12.
Following containment of the fire, The Associated Press reported that the GPS system of the plane “malfunctioned because the military was jamming that signal throughout the area at the time although pilots had been warned to expect that.”
The flight was a joint operation by Trans Aero MedEvac, a private company that has operated in the region since 1966, and Generation Jets, which Trans Aero described as its “longtime fixed-wing aviation partner.”
Snopes reached out to the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, Trans Aero MedEvac and Generation Jets for comment on the involvement of the military in the crash. The Defense Department referred us to the Army. We will update this article if we receive a response from any of the organizations involved.
What the preliminary investigation revealed
According to the NTSB’s preliminary report, embedded below as a PDF, the crew was flying across New Mexico from Roswell Air Center to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, where they were to pick up a patient and go on to Albuquerque.
The report said that “GPS jamming activities that encompassed the area around the accident flight were being conducted by the United States military during the time of the flight” and that when Albuquerque’s air traffic control center contacted the pilots to inform them they were flying above their assigned altitude, “the pilot responded that they were correcting their altitude and that the airplane had lost GPS capability.”
According to the report, the controller contacted a supervisor and requested the military “to stop jamming.” The report described the back-and-forth between air traffic control and the pilots during the next few minutes as the controller guided them using a visual approach rather than relying on their GPS instruments. During this period, the report noted, there were three other aircraft that reported losing GPS.
The controller requested that the military stop jamming at least one more time until, according to the report, “the operations supervisor informed [the military] that the airplane was on a visual approach and that they could resume jamming.”
Soon after, the plane lost altitude and crashed.
“The airplane impacted terrain about 250 ft southwest of the last recorded data point at an elevation of about 9,950 ft, and about 730 ft east and 230 ft below the Capitan Mountains Summit Radio Facility, located at an elevation of about 10,180 ft,” the report read. “A post impact fire occurred that initiated a forest fire.”
The FAA had active Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) at the time — alerts that notify flight crews of potential hazards in their flight path, which the NTSB preliminary investigation concluded the flight crew had access to.
A search of the FAA NOTAM database revealed three entries on the date of the crash, which the NTSB report described as telling pilots the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport’s “automated weather observation system (AWOS) was out of service and that military GPS jamming was scheduled at the time of the accident flight that encompassed the area and altitudes of the accident flight.”
In sum, according to the evidence reviewed by Snopes, the U.S. military appeared to be “jamming” around the time of the flight, but that did not definitively prove causality. As noted, the NTSB report was preliminary and the investigation is ongoing.
As a retired airline pilot told AP in its report, “The loss of GPS should not result in the loss of an airplane, so there’s got to be more to it than that. … If you can see the runway, you can see the mountain. Why would you fly into it?”
Two crew members from each company died: Generation Jets pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara and Trans Aero MedEvac flight nurses Sarah Clark and Jamie Novick.
Following the crash, the companies released a joint statement that 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.” On June 27, a memorial service was held for the victims that can be viewed on YouTube.
