Electronic warfare confounds pilots
Disruptions far from battlefields
Electronic warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine is affecting air travel far from the battlefields, unnerving pilots, and exposing an unintended consequence of a tactic that experts say will become more common.
Planes are losing satellite signals, flights have been diverted, and pilots have received false location reports or inaccurate warnings that they were flying close to terrain, according to European Union safety regulators and an internal airline memo viewed by The New York Times. The Federal Aviation Administration has also warned pilots about GPS jamming in the Middle East.
Radio frequency interference — intended to disrupt the satellite signals used by rockets, drones, and other weaponry — spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and has become even more intense this fall in the Middle East. The interference can involve jamming satellite signals by drowning them out with noise, or spoofing them — mimicking real satellite signals to trick recipients with misleading information.
The radio interference has so far not proven to be dangerous. But aircraft systems have been largely unable to detect GPS spoofing and correct for it, according to Opsgroup, an organization that monitors changes and risks in the aviation industry. One Embraer jet bound for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, nearly veered into Iranian airspace in September before the pilots figured out the plane was chasing a false signal.
“We only realized there was an issue because the autopilot started turning to the left and right, so it was obvious that something was wrong,” crew members reported to Opsgroup.
Airplanes can typically fly safely without satellite signals, and large commercial aircraft have at least six alternative navigation systems, pilots said.
The strain on aviation could be a harbinger of far-reaching economic and security problems as the weapons of electronic warfare proliferate. Financial markets, telecom companies, power providers, broadcasters, and other industries around the world rely on satellite signals to keep accurate time. One study from Britain said that a five-day disruption of satellite signals could cost the country $6.3 billion.
Satellite signals have long been known to be susceptible to jamming and spoofing. They transmit from orbit, more than 12,000 miles above Earth, and are so weak that their power compares to that of a lightbulb.
But many experts had dismissed spoofing attacks as too complicated and expensive for all but highly-trained experts, according to Todd Humphreys, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas Austin.
Russia has disrupted GPS signals to misdirect Ukrainian drones and throw precisionguided shells off their targets. Ukraine also jams Russian receivers.