This article discusses a pilot's unsettling experience with GPS spoofing while flying over Israel. The aircraft's internal instruments incorrectly indicated a dangerously low altitude, triggering alarms that the crew initially dismissed based on their experience. The pilot highlighted concerns about rising risks in the aviation industry, particularly since the onset of major conflicts like the war in Ukraine, which has doubled global warfare areas and forced airlines to reassess safe flight paths, potentially leading to pilot desensitization to critical system alerts.
Over years of flying, it had been drilled into the crew to pull back on the controls when such an alarm sounded, but on this occasion the pilot took no action. The crew were prepared for their system to make spurious warnings and knew from experience they were still flying at a safe altitude.
The pilot involved who works on long-haul routes for a UK airline said they had experienced GPS spoofing, one in a catalogue of growing risks facing airlines as they traverse a world in which warfare has become newly normalised amid a fracturing of global diplomacy.
Since Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world has seen a surge in state-based conflicts. By some measures, the proportion of the world engulfed by warfare has grown 65% since 2021.
Flying through conflicts presents an unsettling reality, where awareness of risks can lead to desensitization, affecting pilots' reactions to system alarms and challenges above safe altitudes.
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