'GPS Spoofing Didn't Hit Flight Ops': Centre A Month After Delhi Airport Chaos

GPS spoofing in and around Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) - the country's busiest - didn't disrupt any flight operations, the government said today, even as reports had suggested hundreds of flights were delayed last month due to the glitch.

Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, said that the spoofing incidents occurred during approaches using GPS-based landing procedures on Runway 10, prompting pilots to switch to contingency protocols. Naidu said that multiple flights approaching the airport reported GPS spoofing.

He was replying to a question by MP S Niranjan Reddy.

He said that no flights were disrupted as other runways equipped with traditional navigation systems continued to function normally.

According to reports, nearly 800 flights were delayed at the Delhi airport on November 6.

Global Positioning System (GPS) or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) spoofing refers to attempts to manipulate a user's navigation system by giving false signals.

Not Just Delhi: Spoofing Reported Across India

The Minister revealed that since the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA made incident reporting mandatory in late 2023, other major airports have also flagged interference. These include Kolkata, Amritsar, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.

Regular reports of GNSS interference, including jamming and spoofing, are now being received from these airports, indicating a nationwide cybersecurity challenge for the aviation sector.

DGCA's New SOP; AAI Calls In Wireless Monitoring Agency

To respond more effectively to such threats, the DGCA has issued multiple directives. These are:

• An advisory circular on handling GNSS interference, originally released in November 2023.
• A new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), issued on November 10, mandates real-time reporting of GPS spoofing and jamming incidents around IGI Airport

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also sought support from the Wireless Monitoring Organisation (WMO) to trace the source of interference. A high-level meeting directed the WMO to deploy more resources and investigate suspected transmission zones identified by DGCA and AAI.

India Retains Ground-Based Navigation Backup

To ensure uninterrupted flight operations, India continues to maintain a Minimum Operating Network (MON) of ground-based navigation and surveillance systems, a redundancy model also used globally. This network serves as a failsafe in case of satellite-based system failures.

Cybersecurity Measures Intensified Amid Global Threats

The Minister warned that the aviation sector is increasingly vulnerable to ransomware and malware attacks worldwide. To counter these threats, the AAI is upgrading its cybersecurity infrastructure in line with directives issued by the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team).

He added that cybersecurity measures are being continuously updated as the nature of threats evolves.