Story to this point: In early November, an plane flying over Delhi encountered GNSS spoofing or manipulation of World Navigation Satellite tv for pc System alerts, catching pilots unexpectedly as they’d no prior warning of such exercise. Such interventions are uncommon, besides in India’s border areas and battle zones. The federal government then ordered an investigation underneath the Nationwide Safety Council Secretariat (NSCS) headed by Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval.
Is {that a} current occasion?
An incident of GNSS spoofing was reported from an plane flying over Delhi. These falsified alerts trigger false navigation knowledge within the cockpit, together with inaccurate plane place and terrain warnings. An Air India pilot stated: hinduism He stated he encountered imposters on all six days he traveled out and in of Delhi within the first week of November. One other pilot stated the cockpit system issued false terrain warnings, suggesting there was an impediment forward the place none existed. Different pilots encountered related warnings whereas taking off from the airport. These occasions had been reported by plane inside 60 nautical miles of Delhi. Disruption of navigation tools usually requires handbook intervention, and the controller supplies navigation steerage on to the cockpit crew. GNSS spoofing, or deceptive satellite tv for pc alerts despatched to idiot airborne receivers resembling enemy drones, is more and more utilized in fashionable warfare and poses a rising menace to plane methods that depend on GNSS alerts. It is a comparatively current phenomenon that has been seen since 2023 in battle areas in West Asia, jap Russia, and close to the borders of India, Pakistan, and Myanmar. Nonetheless, other than sporadic cases of GNSS jamming (blocking of GNSS alerts) through the motion of VIP flights and Republic Day safety protocols, no such exercise has ever been recorded within the inland city airspace. However this time, no Discover to Airmen Warning of Navy Workouts (NOTAM) in Delhi was issued to elucidate why these alerts had been being obtained.
Because the media reported the incident, the Directorate Normal of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued stricter commonplace working protocols (SOPs) requiring pilots and air site visitors controllers to report these occasions inside 10 minutes of their incidence in order that authorities companies can shortly acknowledge the supply of the false sign. The NSCS, headed by Doval, has arrange an inquiry committee to look into the matter. Officers dismissed options that VIP actions forward of the Bihar elections could have triggered such incidents, saying safety protocols throughout such operations embody GNSS jamming fairly than sending false alerts.
What’s GPS spoofing?
Trendy plane methods rely closely on GNSS for correct positioning, navigation, and timing. Tampering with these alerts can have an effect on many methods, together with terrain and runway warning methods, computerized braking, surveillance, and communication hyperlinks between pilots and air site visitors management. Plane methods are constructed with some redundancy, together with an inertial reference system that can also be used for navigation, so GNSS spoofing doesn’t instantly impede plane security. These redundancies proceed to function safely for as much as 5 hours even within the occasion of a significant system failure. Nonetheless, such interference, whether or not intentional or unintended, can threaten security by lowering pilot consciousness, producing false alarms, and growing workload. Managing this downside is much more troublesome as a result of affected areas are usually not at all times listed in NOTAM and crews are usually not ready. Even after leaving the affected space, some methods could not get better correctly and will proceed to challenge false warnings or navigation errors.
In keeping with a 2024 report from the OPS Group, a group of roughly 8,000 volunteers together with pilots, air site visitors controllers, and air site visitors controllers who trade new info on dangers to aviation security, GPS spoofing started to noticeably affect civil aviation in September 2023. Within the first few months, comparatively few plane had been affected, however by January 2024, a median of 300 flights a day had been being spoofed. By August 2024, this had elevated to roughly 1,500 flights per day. In keeping with OPS Group evaluation, a complete of 41,000 flights had been spoofed through the month from July 15 to August 15, 2024. The report recognized the Delhi area as among the many high 10 areas on this planet experiencing mass id theft, after Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, Belarus and Lebanon. The main nation, Cyprus, noticed 5,655 impersonation occasions, whereas the Delhi area noticed 316 impersonation occasions throughout the identical interval. In keeping with authorities knowledge, from November 2023 to February 2025, 465 instances of GPS interference and spoofing had been reported in border areas, primarily in Amritsar and Jammu areas. That is a median of 1 occasion per day.
The primary actors at the moment performing GPS spoofing embody navy forces focusing on hostile drones and GPS-guided munitions and missiles in battle zones. Nonetheless, there are additionally allegations of malicious makes an attempt to focus on civilian plane, notably in opposition to Russia.
What occurred to the EU president?
On September 1, the European Fee introduced {that a} airplane carrying President Ursula von der Leyen encountered a GPS failure, seemingly attributable to Russian interference, whereas approaching southern Bulgaria. She reportedly used a paper map to land safely at Plovdiv Airport after the system malfunctioned. The EU described the incident as a part of a sample of Russia’s “hostile actions” and vowed to strengthen its protection and satellite tv for pc capabilities, however the Kremlin stated the claims had been false.
On December 25, 2024, an Azerbaijan Airways flight carrying 67 passengers from Baku to Grozny crashed in Kazakhstan after reportedly coming underneath fireplace from Russian air protection forces. 38 individuals died on this incident. After the accident, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijan’s president.
What options are proposed?
Willie Walsh, Director Normal of the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation (IATA), which has greater than 350 member airways, urged all events to make sure the security of civil plane and aviation infrastructure, stressing that worldwide legislation clearly prohibits focusing on civil plane and airports.
In September, Worldwide Air Transport Aviation (IATA) offered a paper on the forty second Normal Meeting of the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group, the United Nations’ aviation security watchdog, proposing a multi-pronged method to addressing what the group referred to as “persistent and rising dangers to aviation security.” This consists of growing standardized reporting mechanisms, strengthening cross-border cooperation and data sharing, strengthening home laws on the sale, possession and use of jamming units, and strengthening home and worldwide spectrum administration. Different steps embody deploying superior detection methods and inspiring avionics producers to proactively develop and deploy extra resilient GNSS receivers with enhanced anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities.
In India, GNSS spoofing incidents have repeatedly occurred close to main airports resembling Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata, elevating considerations about security attributable to decreased transparency and delays in official communication. This impedes operational decision-making and undermines flight crew and passenger confidence within the reliability and resilience of aviation methods.
issued – November 16, 2025 2:14 AM IST
