But once airborne, the plane ran into trouble. At the White Sands Missile Range that night, US military personnel were conducting a GPS jamming exercise that left the King Air pilots—and anyone else within hundreds of miles—unable to use modern navigation systems. Forced to revert to older technology, ones that they rarely if ever use, the medevac pilots got disoriented and crashed into the side of a mountain. There were no survivors.
Article says ILS was working fine, and GPS too by the time they were approaching the airport, but they decided to make a visual approach, at night, with little experience, in an unfamiliar area. I guarantee that the mountain they hit is on the charts, which they certainly had, especially given the advance notice of GPS interference in the area. This was fully pilot error.
