Pilots, ATCs must report GPS spoofing within 10 minutes: DGCA

Mumbai, Nov 12 (IANS) India’s aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has directed pilots, air traffic controllers (ATCs) and airlines to report GPS spoofing and other Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interferences within 10 minutes of detection.

The directive aims to ensure flight safety and operational integrity, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said in a circular.

“Any pilot, ATC controller, or technical unit detecting abnormal GPS behaviour such as position anomalies, navigation errors, loss of GNSS signal integrity, or spoofed location data, shall initiate real-time reporting within 10 minutes of occurrence,” the regulator said.

Several instances of GPS interference were detected around Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi recently, which handles over 1,500 flight movements daily.

The regulator asked all stakeholders to immediately log and share details such as date, time, aircraft type, registration, route, and coordinates of the affected area.

Further they are urged to specify the type of interference such as jamming, spoofing, signal loss or integrity error and the aircraft equipment impacted. If possible, corroborate it with material such as system logs, screenshots or Flight Management System data, the circular said.

Around 465 GPS interference and spoofing incidents were reported between November 2023 and February 2025, mostly in border regions such as Amritsar and Jammu.

Several airlines have previously reported GPS signal issues while flying over or near conflict zones globally. The DGCA is currently investigating the spoofing incidents at Delhi's IGI Airport, with data analysis to assess the scale and pattern of interference.

Globally, both ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and IATA (International Air Transport Association) had flagged growing concerns over GNSS spoofing and jamming.

The European Commission in September said that Russia is suspected of jamming the GPS of the airplane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during her visit to Bulgaria.

--IANS

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