It’s not just about coordinates, but also about displaying time.
British consultancy Pen Test Partners, referred to Reuterstold the publication about the ability of ground equipment that increases the error of the GPS positioning system to negatively affect the functioning of civil aviation. Of course, planes can go off course, relying too much on GPS coordinates in such a situation, but there is also the problem of disruption of other onboard devices.
Image source: Reuters
There are increasingly more reports of failures in the onboard clocks of civilian airliners, which cause the digital communications encryption system to stop working. Of course, such a failure in itself cannot lead to a plane crash, but such impacts, according to experts, trigger a chain of events that grow in their danger, like a cascade. One of the airliners that encountered such an anomaly in the clock had to be manually reconfigured for several weeks to return to safe operation after the incident.
GPS ground stations are often disrupted in close proximity to military conflict zones as defense systems attempt to jam them to protect against missile guidance. This poses increased risks to civil aviation in these turbulent times.
