What is GPS spoofing — and how did it throw Delhi Airport flights off track this month

While such incidents have increased in the past couple of years, flight operations in battle zones are more likely to face spoofing. Thus, flights operating in Delhi facing spoofing emerged as a major concern.

What is GPS spoofing?

Spoofing is a type of GPS interference. It involves a device transmitting signals on the same frequencies used by GPS satellites, blocking the receivers from acquiring or maintaining the right satellite signals.

Unlike jamming, another type of GPS interference which disrupts signals entirely, spoofing deceives the receiver into trusting false data.

In jamming, the aircraft loses its positioning, while in spoofing, pilots get wrong signals about their locations. Both jamming as well as spoofing can cause significant disruptions in aircraft navigation systems.

What happened at Delhi airport?

The IGIA saw significant disruptions due to a number of reasons on November 7 with the snag hitting its Air Traffic Control (ATC) system.

The problem compounded because of ongoing runway upgrades.

With the main 10/28 runway at the airport closed for an upgrade, its instrument landing system (ILS) has been switched off. In the absence of ILS, aircraft rely on GPS-based Required Navigation Performance (RNP guidance to land, but the recent GPS spoofing around Delhi has been disrupting these signals.

When the GPS data becomes unreliable, pilots cannot use RNP, leaving them with no precise navigation aid to line up with the runway. As a result, flights approaching from that direction face difficulties in landing, causing delays, congestion and diversions.

How many incidents of spoofing has India witnessed?

Spoofing is generally seen in war zones where competing sides attempt to confuse each others’ aircraft and ships. Baltic countries have often accused Russia of orchestrating spoofing attacks on flights operating in the region, and such attacks have risen in recent years, particularly after the Ukraine war began in 2022.

Between November 2023 and February 2025, around 465 incidents of GPS interference were reported in India’s border regions, mostly in Amritsar and Jammu regions, Murlidhar Mohol, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, informed Lok Sabha earlier this year.

What is the government doing to tackle this issue?

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had issued an advisory back in 2023 on interference with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in airspace, highlighting the threats GNSS jamming and spoofing pose for aircraft operations.

A few days ago, in light of the incidents of spoofing reported in and around IGIA, DGCA again issued updated reporting protocols for pilots, mandating them to report spoofing incidents within 10 minutes of encountering such interference.

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

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