There’s a mounting contradiction today in international travel. Firstly, we scrutinize each passenger’s booking and travel plans, match their details against no-fly lists, submit them to stringent TSA scrutiny, confiscate items shar as a pen, question them, X-ray their luggage, conduct dangerous goods detection tests, and check the background of each and every crew member. And after all these precautions, we fly this highly secure aircraft right into a conflict zone. It makes no sense, right?
The safest mode of transportation continues to be increasingly threatened by geopolitics, economic pressures, and new technological vulnerabilities. The tragedies of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 and Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 have shown the dangers of flying close to active conflict zones.
Despite such sobering lessons, some airlines, like Air India and Chinese carriers, continue to fly across high-risk areas simply because of operational convenience and cost efficiency. Compounding these risks is a growing technological menace: GPS jamming and spoofing have emerged as a silent, invisible threat to modern aviation.
Lessons unlearned: MH17 and PS752
The tragic loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014, shot down by a Russian Buk missile over Ukraine, and the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 in 2020 by a rocket in Iran should have marked breakpoint moments for aviation safety. Each exposed gaping flaws in managing and restricting global airspace over conflict zones.
In both instances, the airspace remained partially open to civilian traffic despite advanced weaponry and heightened military activity. In both cases, airlines flew through those regions, probably because perceived risks were low compared to the expense of rerouting flights. The consequences of such miscalculations proved catastrophic and claimed hundreds of innocent lives.
The cases of Air India and Chinese airlines
Meanwhile, geopolitics, economic pressures, and technological vulnerabilities present increasingly critical threats against air travel. Despite the tragedies of MH17 and PS752 shining a bright light on the dangers of conflict zone flying, economic incentives continue to tempt airlines, including Air India and Chinese carriers onto high-risk routes.
These airlines flying through the Russian airspace save a lot of flight time and fuel, which gives them an advantage over their competitors, mainly Western airlines such as British Airways, whose flights must be rerouted. This cost difference has changed the dynamics of aviation worldwide, as some Western airlines have had to suspend services due to their unsustainable costs.
The cost advantage
Air India and several Chinese carriers continue using Russian airspace despite the geopolitical tensions arising after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This allows them to take a direct route from Europe to Asia, saving tremendous fuel and flight time costs. For example, Chinese carriers flying between China and Europe have an estimated 20% cost advantage over Western carriers that are forced to fly longer routes around Russian territory. Similarly, Air India has decided to keep flying through Russian airspace to allow its flights to reach Europe and North America in a shorter travel time.
Recently, British Airways announced that it had stopped flying its route from London to Beijing, as it could no longer afford the detouring around Russian airspace. Longer routes not only burn more fuel but also raise operation costs, making them economically unviable at this time while adding up to four hours to travel time and significantly raise fuel costs.
A new risk variable: GPS Jamming and Spoofing
While physical threats from missiles and air defenses may dominate the headlines, technological threats like jamming and spoofing are emerging as increasingly common around war zones. Such tactics jam systems used in aviation cause much confusion to pilots and air traffic controllers.
What is GPS Jamming?
GPS jamming involves an on-purpose disruption of signals, causing aircraft to fail to locate their correct position. Pilots lose situational awareness, especially in regions where the airspace is heavily contested.
What is GPS Spoofing?
Spoofing further increases this threat by transmitting false GPS signals and tricking navigation systems into showing incorrect locations. This may lead to flight routes diverting into prohibited or hazardous airspace, increased interception, or accidents.
These are the dire implications of such technologies. GPS interference can force pilots into fatal errors in conflict zones, where communication systems may already be strained. The Skai Data Services spoofing tracker features a database featuring a detailed repository of such incidents. This database documents global instances of GPS interference and thus gives evidence of the scale and seriousness of this issue.
Cases involving private jet crews
Aircraft avionics rely on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and jamming or spoofing can cause other issues, such as switching off the autopilot. In an incident in 2022, after take-off from Lahore, Pakistan, at 1,500 feet, an aircraft encountered a GPS failure that led to the Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) failing, the compass spinning rapidly, the autopilot failing, and a Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS) sounding.
Last year, a Gulfstream G650 took off from Tel Aviv, Israel, and had a complete navigational failure due to spoofing. The GPS became unreliable, and ATC advised them they were off course and gave them vectors. A Bombardier Global Express again took off from Tel Aviv and received false information saying they were over Beirut.
So far, the worst cases have involved the failure of navigation systems and requiring vectors from ATC, IRS failure, and unnoticed navigation towards hostile airspace. Indeed, the aviation industry needs to react to the issue of allowing flight crew to find ways of detecting spoofing/jamming and mitigating the risk.
GPS has become part of the aviation infrastructure as it replaces the older radio beam systems used to guide aircraft toward landing. Many countries have been decommissioning their ground-based navaids, including DME and VOR stations, but experts are now suggesting that a network of navaids be maintained to offer traditional navigation methods should an event leave an aircraft with navigation failure.
The link between spoofing and war zone risks
The geopolitical conflict and technological vulnerabilities create a perfect storm that sets the stage for aviation disasters. Specifically, these include unintentional incursions, whereby aircraft, through GPS spoofing, can be misled into unknowingly veering into restricted or hostile airspace where they may be perceived as threats.
Furthermore, in areas with active military engagements, the interference of GPS increases the likelihood of civilian aircraft being mistakenly identified as military targets- an outcome tragically realized in the PS752 incident.
Increased stress among pilots is also a key variable, as flying through areas with unreliable GPS data is extremely stressful for the flight crew, especially when decisions must be made within seconds under critical circumstances.
With the risk of GPS jamming and spoofing becoming more widespread, these are no longer theoretical risks. Reports of interference have surged near conflict zones in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia-with the potential to put not only passenger flights at risk but also humanitarian and cargo operations.
Geopolitics are reshaping global aviation
That Air India and Chinese carriers continue flying through Russian airspace underlines how geopolitics is rewriting the rules for global aviation. For Air India, it aligns with a Russian outreach to Indian carriers amid Moscow’s push to keep its economy going despite international sanctions.
However, while airlines enforce rigorous security protocols some flights continue to operate through high-risk areas where safety cannot be guaranteed. This is a dark paradox in our skies today, one that must be heavily accounted for by commercial and private jet crews globally, while also raising questions on the fundamental priorities of international aviation today.
Our industry must urgently address this incoherence, ensuring that the pursuit of profit and geopolitical gains does not undermine the essence of this industry: safety at all costs.
