Concerned over reports that civilian aircrafts may sometimes be flying blind over parts of the Middle East, the Indian civil aviation regulator DGCA has issued an advisory to all Indian airlines. There have been several reports in recent days that navigation systems of civilian aircrafts are being spoofed when they fly over parts of the Middle East. This is fast emerging as a major safety hazard and the DGCA advisory aims to alert airlines of the nature of the threat and how to respond to it.
In late September, multiple commercial flights near Iran went off-course after their navigation systems went blind. One of the aircraft, which fell victim to spoofing, ended up almost flying into Iranian airspace without permission.
According to OpsGroup, a group of professional pilots, flight dispatchers, schedulers, and controllers have flagged the issue.
The planes flying over parts of the Middle East initially receive a spoofed GPS signal. This signal is aimed at fooling the aircraft’s in-built system into thinking that they are flying miles away from their intended route. The signal is often strong enough to compromise the integrity of the aircraft’s system.
“The aviation industry is grappling with uncertainties due to new threats and reports of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) jamming and spoofing,” the circular states.
The report takes note of “increasing reports of GNSS interference over airspace in the Middle East in the recent past” and calls for the development of contingency measures to deal with the jamming of navigation systems. The DGCA has also sought the creation of a threat monitoring and analysis network.
The result is that within minutes, the inertial reference system (IRS) becomes unstable and in many cases, the plane loses all navigation capability.
