GPS spoofing is done with commercially available, cheap and portable equipment

Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service

ndian Air Force planes flying relief material to earthquake-hit Myanmar faced cyber attacks—their Global Positioning Systems, used for navigation, were spoofed. In aviation parlance, it means the GPS gave wrong signals to pilots in an attempt to mislead them to follow a different flight path, other than what is determined by the Air Traffic Controller.

With many such cases being reported over Pakistani air space and Myanmar air space, the threat of China having supplied the equipment and training for doing this is not ruled out.

The IAF had sent in six sorties on March 29, a day after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake shook Myanmar. IAF pilots reported back about getting wrong GPS signals.

What is spoofing?

Spoofing means ‘fake’ information is sent to a plane in the air, while overriding the actual information. It is done using a radio transmitter that emits stronger signals than the real signals. The navigation system of the aircraft gets misled and starts working by considering the wrong ‘stronger’ signal as the correct one. GPS spoofing is done with commercially available, cheap and portable equipment, too, including using software-defined radios running open-source software.

GPS is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) used in the world. A constellation of satellites beam signals to Earth, ground-based receivers then transmit it and determine the location.

GPS spoofing can also interfere with smartphone apps and location data as well as involve cyberattacks on network systems and critical infrastructure that relies on GPS.

The threat of air-defence missiles getting activated

In South Asia all planes – civilian or military – need to get an air-defence clearance (ADC). This is like a security clearance required for flights operating through the Air Defence Identification Zones (ADIZ) of several countries in South Asia —  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal. Without an ADC, flights could face delays, or potentially being denied entry into the airspace.

The ADC number is transmitted to the Air Traffic Controllers, so that the air defence missile operators are notified and there is a clear information on what type of plane is flying in and the ground-based missiles don’t react. 

Issues in Myanmar

Since the military coup in February 2021, there was a decline in ATC services as the staff went on strike. ATC services are back, however, amid growing unrest in the country with large swathes of territory under the control of rebels. Airspace is at risk because of military operations, surface-to-air fire and anti-aviation weaponry. The IAF planes, which had the GPS spoofed, were also at this risk, but they quickly shifted to inertial navigation system (INS). The INS is a back-up and used when a satellite breach disrupts the GPS. The INS puts the plane back on its correct course.

Civilian planes impacted regularly

The Ministry of Civil Aviation in reply in Lok Sabha on March 20 said several airlines have reported that aircraft operating in and around Amritsar have experienced GPS interference. Around 465 incidents of spoofing were reported along the Indo-Pak border region between November 2023 and February 2025. These were mostly in Amritsar and Jammu.

Pilots of civilian airlines are notified through what is called Notice to Airman (NOTAM).