GPS Spoofing, Jamming Attacks in the Air Are Increasing, Experts Say

Mario Paniccia, CEO of Anello Photonics, said the fate of Flight 8243, shot down by mistake in an area of GPS jamming, highlighted the ’reality.'

Emergency specialists work at the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, on Dec. 25, 2024. Emergencies Ministry/via Reuters

There has been a big increase in the number of GPS spoofing and jamming attacks aimed at interfering with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data, which are standard on all international airliners, according to a U.N. aviation agency.

Stanford University, which keeps a database of incidents, reported that 25 planes were affected by GPS jamming over Utah on the night of Oct. 29.

On Oct. 25, GPS jamming off the west coast of Ireland lasted for five hours and six minutes and affected 87 planes, according to the database.

Russia and North Korea are two of the bad actors responsible for the uptick, the U.N. agency stated in an early October report.

GPS jamming has already led to one aviation disaster, according to Jeremy Bennington, vice president of strategy and innovation at Spirent, which tests networks.

Bennington cited the incident on Dec. 25, 2024, in which Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, after being struck by Russian missile shrapnel.

Mario Paniccia, CEO of Anello Photonics and an expert on spoofing and jamming, told The Epoch Times that the pilot would have been “flying blind” once the GPS signal was lost.

The jet was flying from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny when it was diverted.

The pilots were asked to follow GPS procedures and were unable to do so, according to Spirent.

“So they’re flying around and trying to land multiple times, and are not able to because of the weather,” Bennington said.

Spirent stated that the plane suffered GPS interference when it entered Russian airspace. Bennington said transcripts of the conversations between the pilots—who were both killed—and the air traffic controllers show that there was a lot of “confusion.”

Bennington said the plane was misidentified as a target because its GPS signal was jammed. He said anti-drone GPS jamming is used frequently by the Russians.

On Oct. 9, after a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that the plane had been damaged after being hit by debris as missiles fired by Russian air defense systems exploded about 30 feet away.

Putin said that the investigation was nearing completion and that there were a number of factors involved.

“The first is that a Ukrainian drone was mid-air at the time of the tragedy,” Putin said. “We were tracking three drones crossing the Russian Federation’s border during the night of the tragedy.”

GPS jamming is a daily occurrence, Paniccia said. Spoofing and jamming are not limited to areas of conflict such as Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Unfortunately, you only hear about it when there’s a crash, but it’s happening all the time, especially in [and] around Ukraine,” he said.

Paniccia said 1,700 flights per day are spoofed and GPS interference has increased by 500 percent since 2024.

He said Kyiv’s airport is out of action because of GPS jamming by both sides. World leaders who come to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have to fly to Poland and then enter by train.

1st Use

The use of satellites to help aircraft navigate the world has a long history and was originally designed for the U.S. military.

On Aug. 30, 1983, a South Korean airliner, flying from New York City to Seoul, South Korea, was shot down after it strayed off course and into the airspace of the Soviet Union.

As a result of this incident, U.S. President Ronald Reagan authorized the civilian use of GPS navigation, or NAVSTAR as it was originally known, which was first introduced in civilian airliners in the late 1980s.

Even with GPS, mistakes can happen.

On July 3, 1988, the crew of the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people. This incident occurred even though the warship was equipped with GPS, which correctly identified the Iranian plane as a civilian airliner.

Earlier this year, Russia was suspected of conducting an interference attack that disabled the GPS on a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, forcing it to land at a Bulgarian airport.

Von der Leyen’s plane landed safely in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on Aug. 31, and she continued her planned tour of European Union nations bordering Russia and Belarus.

EU officials confirmed the story, first reported by The Financial Times, which stated that the GPS jamming deprived Von der Leyen’s plane of electronic navigational aids while on approach to the city’s airport.

European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podestà said, “We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that Russia had been involved in the incident, telling The Financial Times, “Your information is incorrect.”

Von der Leyen’s plane had to land using paper maps.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (L) talks with U.S. President Donald Trump after reaching a trade deal at the Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, on July 27, 2025. Jacquelyn Martin /AP Photo

Paniccia said he believes that truck drivers in Israel and Ukraine are also resorting to using old-fashioned maps because of the unreliability of satellite navigation systems due to GPS jamming.

He also pointed to recent footage shared on social media that showed the effects of GPS jamming in dramatic fashion as drones fell out of the sky in China, including some that had been fitted with fireworks for a pyrotechnic display.

GPS spoofing and jamming have also become major problems in the shipping industry in recent years, although the consequences are greater in the world of aviation.

‘Very Offensive Strategy’

Jamming used to be seen sporadically, Bennington said, when an adversary was trying to just deny GPS or GNSS signals. However, in recent years, there has been more spoofing, which he called a “very offensive strategy.”

Bad actors have been trying to attack and capture the GPS or GNSS system of their targets and give them a false location, according to him.

“In the last three years, we’ve seen a really big shift,” Bennington said.

On Sept. 4, the Swedish Transport Agency (STA) issued a statement blaming Russia for a big increase in GPS jamming incidents in the airspace above the Baltic Sea.

The STA said there had been 733 incidents between Jan. 1, 2025, and Aug. 28, 2025, compared with just 55 in the whole of 2023.

“The source of the interference has been traced to Russian territory,” STA said.

The Swedes said they were raising the issue with the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization.

On Oct. 3, the International Civil Aviation Organization announced that recurring GPS interference by Russia and North Korea constituted infractions of the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation.

Only a few days before, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova cited the convention when criticizing aviation sanctions against Moscow by 37 countries, including the UK and the United States.

Since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian planes have been forbidden from landing in or flying over U.S., UK, and EU territory, and an embargo has been imposed on spare parts from manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus.

A map showing areas—identified by Spirent's Watchman service—of GPS spoofing in 2025. Courtesy of Spirent Communications

Bennington has written blogs about the vulnerability of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast and enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (eGPWS).

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast enables an aircraft to communicate its position to air traffic control and other nearby aircraft. It is mandatory in the United States and many other countries.

In the 1990s, Don Bateman invented eGPWS, which greatly reduced the risk of planes colliding with the ground, especially when flying in low-visibility conditions.

Bennington said the technology is prone to GPS spoofing.

“This has prompted the industry to develop specific guidance and procedures for pilots landing in an area of suspected GPS spoofing,” he wrote in a blog earlier this year.

“Unless the crew can visually verify that there is no threat, the crew must respond to the eGPWS alert. This most commonly results in a go-around.”

Anello has developed a silicon photonic optical gyroscope, which enables GPS-free navigation.

Events such as the loss of Flight 8243, Paniccia said, “highlight more and more the reality of what’s happening.”