Image: IATA and EuroControl
What’s New: A report by EuroControl to the U.N. International Committee on GNSS that found wherever commercial aircraft go, they find GPS/GNSS interference.
Why It’s Important: Interference with GPS can cause accidents and kill people.
- The report mentions two of several ways this is a problem for aviation safety
- Pilots can no longer trust their instruments and are left wondering which is the correct information.
- Note – at night and in clouds flight instruments are the only thing keeping the aircraft, crew and passengers in the air. Trying to fly without them in such conditions invariably leads to disorientation and crashes.
- Pilots get distracted by lots of spurious alerts.
- We saw this in some of the reports from the Denver incident.
- Pilots can no longer trust their instruments and are left wondering which is the correct information.
- Other problems caused are aircraft coming too close to each other, emergency procedure information incorrect, increased pilot and air traffic control workload, All can lead to accidents.
- A passenger aircraft nearly impacted a mountain near Sun Valley, Idaho because of GPS interference.
What Else to Know:
- This isn’t just a problem for aviation.
- At least one maritime study found GPS interference at every phase an almost every location along a globe-spanning voyage.
- An EU study found almost 500,000 signals that could interfere with GPS/GNSS across all Europe in almost every kind of location.
- Prior to 2010 aviation, maritime, and other users were also able to use Loran for navigation and timing. We know of no instances of interference during 60+ years of Loran operations.
