Rep. Mike Quigley called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation Tuesday, citing federal investigators’ findings that military GPS jamming was active in the area where a medevac plane crashed in New Mexico in May, killing all four people aboard. “Four American civilians died when a small medical plane crashed because the military jammed the area’s GPS signal. I’m thinking of the families of the victims, and I will do everything I can to get them justice,” Quigley wrote on X. “Civilian skies should never be put at risk by Pentagon policies. Someone needs to be held accountable — that’s why I’m calling for Pete Hegseth’s resignation AND I’m on articles of impeachment to get him out.”
What Happened the Night of the Crash
According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report, a Beechcraft King Air C90 operated by Generation Jets on behalf of Trans Aero MedEvac departed Roswell Air Center just before midnight on May 13 en route to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso to pick up a patient. About six minutes after takeoff, the crew reported losing GPS navigation capability; three other aircraft in the area reported similar problems around the same time. An air traffic controller contacted personnel at nearby White Sands Missile Range and asked them to pause GPS jamming testing, and the military briefly complied. Once the crew reported having the airport in sight and requested a visual approach, the controller told the military it could resume. Roughly five minutes later, the aircraft struck a ridge in the Capitan Mountains at about 9,950 feet, killing pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark.
What the NTSB Report Actually Says
The report states plainly 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,” tying the interference to routine NAVFEST electronic warfare exercises at White Sands. Federal Aviation Administration notices had warned pilots in advance that military GPS jamming was scheduled in the area and altitudes the flight would pass through. The NTSB emphasized that the preliminary report documents facts gathered so far and does not assign a probable cause; a final determination is expected sometime in 2027. The agency has publicly stated it “has not yet determined the probable cause or any contributing factors to the accident.”
The Crash Sparked a Major Wildfire Too
The impact ignited what became known as the Seven Cabins wildfire, which burned roughly 31,860 acres in the rugged terrain around the Capitan Mountains before being fully contained in mid-June. No structures were damaged, though the fire burned for approximately a month.
Quigley’s Broader Case Against Hegseth
Tuesday’s post extends a pattern of criticism Quigley has directed at Hegseth for more than a year. In a March 2025 statement posted to his official House website, following revelations that senior officials had discussed a military operation over the unsecured Signal messaging app, Quigley said “Secretary Hegseth must be removed from his position for recklessly sharing target and weapons information outside of secure channels and endangering the lives of our men and women in uniform.” He continued calling for Hegseth’s removal into December 2025, citing an independent Pentagon Inspector General investigation that he said proved Hegseth “risked the lives of our servicemembers during Signalgate.”
The Impeachment Articles He References
Quigley is one of the co-sponsors listed on H.Res.1177, articles of impeachment against Hegseth introduced by Rep. Yassamin Ansari in April 2026. According to the resolution’s official text on Congress.gov, the articles accuse Hegseth of six categories of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including unauthorized war against Iran and reckless endangerment of U.S. servicemembers, violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians, and the negligence and reckless handling of sensitive military information tied to the earlier Signal chat controversy. The article on sensitive information states that Hegseth “demonstrated gross negligence in the handling of sensitive and classified military information” and that his conduct “compromised operational security and placed United States personnel at risk.”
Why the Articles Don’t Cover This Crash
The GPS jamming crash predates the articles of impeachment Quigley co-sponsored — H.Res.1177 was introduced in mid-April, and the crash occurred May 14 — meaning the specific incident driving Tuesday’s resignation call is not among the resolution’s existing six articles. Quigley’s post treats the crash as additional evidence supporting his broader case against Hegseth’s leadership of the Pentagon rather than as grounds for a new, separate impeachment article.
A Pattern Experts Say Raises Hard Questions
Aviation safety experts have described the crash as illustrating a genuine tension between military testing needs and civilian aviation safety, even while cautioning that GPS loss alone should not have caused the crash. Todd Humphreys, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Radionavigation Laboratory, who has participated in testing at White Sands, said the jamming used to prevent GPS spoof signals from misleading civilian aircraft near the range is intense, telling IEEE Spectrum: “The jamming coming from White Sands is intense. It goes all the way up to low Earth orbit and even affects satellites up there.” Kris Brost of Robin Radar Systems separately argued to Wired that counter-drone and electronic warfare technology needs to be “surgical, not a sledgehammer” when it operates in shared civilian airspace.
This Was Reportedly the First Case of Its Kind
Multiple outlets reporting on the NTSB’s preliminary findings described the crash as the first documented case in which military GPS jamming has been identified as a factor in a fatal U.S. civilian aircraft accident. GPS interference incidents affecting civil aviation have risen sharply in recent years — the International Air Transport Association has reported that instances of aircraft experiencing GPS signal interference roughly doubled between 2021 and 2024, a trend that has accelerated further amid expanded military electronic warfare testing and, separately, widespread GPS spoofing affecting commercial shipping during the Iran war.
Testing Has Continued Since the Crash
Despite the fatal incident, GPS jamming exercises at White Sands have not stopped. Reporting on the investigation’s status found that military jamming exercises had been scheduled on at least 12 separate days at White Sands in the weeks following the May crash, underscoring that the underlying safety question Quigley’s post raises — how to balance military electronic warfare testing against civilian aviation safety in shared airspace — remains unresolved even as the NTSB’s investigation continues.
Another New Mexico Lawmaker Weighs In
Quigley was not the only member of Congress to press for accountability following the NTSB’s preliminary findings. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, whose district includes the crash site, separately demanded a joint briefing from the Departments of Transportation and Defense by early September on how the FAA and Pentagon coordinate GPS jamming testing with civilian air traffic, seeking answers on both this incident and the broader risk posed by similar testing exercises elsewhere in the country.
Where It Stands
As of Quigley’s Tuesday post, the NTSB’s final report and probable-cause determination remained pending, expected sometime in 2027, and the Pentagon had not publicly responded to Quigley’s specific resignation call or otherwise assigned responsibility for the crash, citing the ongoing federal investigation.