Instances of disruption to navigational systems have surged since Israel launched its attacks on Iran 10 days ago. Photo /123rf
Instances of disruption to navigational systems have surged since Israel launched its attacks on Iran 10 days ago. Photo /123rf
Electronic warfare technology used by Iran, Israel and others is increasingly drowning out the satellite signals passenger jets use to determine their positions.
The escalating conflict in the Middle East poses an unseen but potentially deadly threat to planes crossing the region’s airspace.
Electronic warfare technology used by Iran, Israeland other players in the region is increasingly drowning out the satellite signals modern jets use to determine their positions.
In turn, the risk of aircraft colliding or being shot down as they lose their GPS connections and stray off course has risen, aviation safety experts warn.
Airlines are faced with a choice of trusting pilots to fly through affected areas or making costly diversions that could add more than 1600 kilometres and two hours to each flight.
However, Benoit Figuet, co-founder of SkAI, which maps GPS jamming, warns the increasing prevalence of the technique is presenting fresh challenges for airlines.
“The aim of jamming is to stop the missile reaching its target, but civil aircraft use the same GPS system to navigate,” he says. “Pilots are very concerned about the increasing risk.”
Instances of disruption to navigational systems have surged since Israel launched its attacks on Iran 10 days ago.
FlightRadar24 reported a “dramatic increase” in interference since the US attacked Iran’s underground facilities over the weekend, while SkAI said that more than 160 flights were impacted in the Persian Gulf area on June 21 alone, together with close to 90 in the skies around Israel.
Civil aircraft can be sent off course in two distinct ways.
Jamming at its most basic involves broadcasting a signal strong enough to drown out the weaker signatures of satellites. Since this deprives the receiver of data, the flight’s pilots would generally become quickly aware of the situation.
GPS spoofing is a more modern technique and involves indicating a false position for the missile or plane, leading the former to miss its target but sending the latter off course.
In a recent survey of 2000 flight crew by Ops Group, an organisation for pilots, air traffic controllers and flight dispatchers, 70% rated their level of concern about spoofing’s impact on flight safety as very high or extreme.
Their biggest worries were going off course, being unable to use GPS-based landing aids, being unable to restore GPS and having to fly across the ocean without it, and receiving false ground proximity warnings, which could result in an emergency ascent and a collision.
Invisible conflict
While the “hot war” in the Middle East presents a clear threat to overflying aircraft, with the danger of a passenger plane being accidentally or deliberately targeted, the risk from the invisible conflict is likely to linger long after military exchanges cease.
With Russia erecting electronic warfare systems along the length of its western border since the invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, jamming is active along a 5630km arc stretching from the Arctic Ocean to Oman.
Although narrow gaps of still-open airspace have allowed airlines to carry on flying from Europe and eastern US to the Middle East, Asia and Australia, while avoiding conflict zones, those areas have not been immune to jamming.
Incidents of interference with satellite signals have been commonplace over Iraq, which provided the most popular route for flights between Europe and the Gulf until it too became a no-fly zone when Israel began its barrage against Iran on June 13.
Though aircraft are continuing to fly over Turkey, the Caucasus and across central Asia to reach the Far East, SkAI’s map shows that those flights are potentially exposed to intense Russian jamming activity in the southern Black Sea.
The Azerbaijan Airlines crash last December involved suspected Russian jamming aimed at countering drone attacks. Having lost GPS contact, the plane was hit by shrapnel from a missile and diverted to Kazakhstan, where it came down, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
The crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan last December has been linked to jamming. Photo / AFP
Airlines bound for the Gulf and India had been flying a much more southerly route since the start of the Israeli offensive, with flights from Europe heading south over the Mediterranean and into Egypt before turning east over Saudi Arabia, giving the war zone a wide berth.
Despite that, numerous airlines abandoned services to the Gulf on Sunday following the US bombardment, with British Airways suspending flights to both Dubai and Doha, in Qatar, having already put Bahrain and Amman, in Jordan, on hold.
British Airways cancelled Qatar-bound services again on Monday following Tehran’s attack on a US base there, but said two overnight trips to Dubai, the world’s busiest international airport, would go ahead following an assessment of the security situation.
Virgin Atlantic’s winter-only flights to Dubai do not resume until October, while services to Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, are continuing as normal. India flights have been diverted away from the Gulf and Iraq.
The International Air Transport Association (Iata), which represents 350 airlines, highlighted the threat from jamming and spoofing at its annual meeting earlier this month, saying that instances of GPS signal loss had increased threefold between 2021 and 2024.
Nick Careen, Iata’s safety chief, said the typical response to spoofing right now is to reboot the system so that the plane can re-acquire its correct coordinates, though this is not possible with all models of aircraft.
He also urged governments to stop airports and air traffic controllers removing ground-based navigational aids that could help guide planes in the event of satellite guidance being lost.
He said: “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where we’re heading. To stay ahead of the threat, aviation must act together and without delay.”
