(Image source from: Livehindustan.com)
The government informed Parliament on Monday that flights near Delhi and other big Indian airports have experienced GPS spoofing and signal interference in the last year. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu shared this in a written response to the Rajya Sabha, detailing the problems and what is being done. He stated that since November 2023, when the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) required reporting of GPS jamming or spoofing, "regular reports are coming in from other major airports in the country," including those in Kolkata, Amritsar, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
In response to MP S Niranjan Reddy's questions, Naidu mentioned that some planes landing at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) reported GPS spoofing when using satellite-guided landings on Runway 10. Emergency plans were put into action for these flights. He added that flights on other runways, which use older ground-based navigation systems, were not impacted.
A set of rules has been made for quickly reporting fake GPS signals near IGIA. Pilots and air traffic controllers must report unusual GPS activity right away. The government stated that India keeps traditional, ground-based navigation and tracking systems active, following international standards. These systems offer a dependable backup if satellite navigation fails.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also requested the Wireless Monitoring Organisation (WMO) to help find where the interference is coming from. In a recent important meeting, WMO was told to bring in more help and use the rough location data of the fake signals from DGCA and AAI to find the source. The minister also mentioned wider internet dangers to planes, like harmful software that attacks important systems. To fight these dangers, AAI is putting advanced internet security systems on its computer networks and equipment. These improvements follow advice from the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). Officials said that internet security is always being improved, with new safeguards added as new threats appear.
