‘Defund them’: Outrage as fatal plane crash raises questions about Trump military testing

Outraged is mounting over a new report revealing U.S. military testing in New Mexico may have played a role in a fatal plane crash.

“Defund them,” wrote attorney and political consultant Briahna Joy Gray Tuesday in a social media post on X, referring to the U.S. military.

The fatal flight ended on May 14 when a civilian plane on a medical transport mission crashed into the side of a mountain after the pilots became "disoriented," Wired reported last week.

While the cause of the crash has yet to be officially determined, Wired's aviation reporter Jeff Wise noted testing at the White Sands Missile Range may have played a role in the incident.

“While the crash was the first fatal accident in the US known to be linked to electronic warfare, there’s no reason to think it will be the last," Wise wrote.

Christopher Hale, a Democratic political operative and former congressional candidate, laid the blame for the accident squarely on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of being responsible for “killing everyone on board” the aircraft.

Kelly Cameron, a writer and disability activist, compared the situation to the chaotic and abrupt airspace shutdown over El Paso, Texas back in February, an incident that sparked a chorus of “chaos” and “finger-pointing” at the highest levels of Trump administration.

“Remember when the US closed airspace over El Paso for a military training exercise and forgot to tell anyone? It gets worse,” Cameron wrote in a social media post on X.

“The military also jammed GPS signals and caused a medevac plane to crash, killing all healthcare workers on board. This should be a huge story.”

And Cassie Pritchard, a labor organizer and writer, sarcastically made reference to Hegseth’s controversial testosterone testing policy as being a silver lining to the tragedy.

“But hey our military is all on TRT now, so, uh,” Pritchard sarcastically quipped in a social media post on X.

As modern warfare increasingly relies on the use of drones, GPS jamming technology has grown more useful. However, according to Todd Humphreys, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas Austin, commercial aircraft may end up as collateral damage.

“There is no question that increased levels of GPS jamming and spoofing around the world pose a safety risk for commercial aviation. When alarms go off routinely in the cockpit, and when pilots learn to disregard key readings from their instruments because the readings can't be trusted, we're a long way from normal operation,” Humphreys told Wired.

“Air travel is still very safe, but it may be stuck for the next five years or more in a mild-and-increasing risk situation as we confront ever more GPS interference within the very-slow-to-adapt aviation industry.”