Myanmar is the epicenter of GPS jamming in Asia.
A map from Flightradar24, the aircraft tracking website, shows a cluster of red hexagons blanketing the country’s southern region. The pixelated dots represent areas experiencing high levels of interference with satellite-guided navigation systems and serve as a warning to aircraft in the region.
“GPS jamming involves saturating GPS receivers with unknown signals. . . essentially degrading everyone’s ability to effectively use GPS for navigational purposes,” explained a post on Flightradar24. The crowdsourced service, started by “two Swedish aviation geeks” in 2006, now operates the largest aviation surveillance network using ADS-B receivers.
Scrambled signals, the website warned, can result in “flight deviations, missed approaches, or potential collisions, especially in critical phases such as takeoff, landing, or during instrument approaches in low visibility conditions.”
The motivating factors behind specific jamming incidents are not always clear. Natural phenomena such as solar flares can degrade GPS signals. However, defense analysts agree that the recent surge in large-scale jamming comes from nation-states “driven by the desire to protect military targets” from satellite-guided missiles or drones.
On April 4, Myanmar’s military was blindsided by drone attacks on Naypyidaw, the capital. A swarm of fixed-wing drones struck prominent targets including the military’s headquarters, an air base, and the residence of the junta’s leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Military-run Myawaddy TV put out a report saying the drones were shot down and there were no casualties. The People’s Defense Force (PDF), the armed wing of the opposition National Unity Government (NUG), carried out the attack.
Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy was targeted a few days later during a visit to the Southeastern Regional Command headquarters near Mawlamyine, the capital of Mon State. Vice-Senior Gen. Soe Win was whisked off the premises when one-way attack drones hit the building. The general was reportedly injured. An NUG-affiliated armed group called the Alpha Bats Drone Force claimed responsibility for the strike.
The escalation in drone warfare over the past year has reshaped the country’s internal power dynamic. “They have not completely closed the tactical asymmetry between the military and resistance forces, but have diminished it significantly,” a Myanmar scholar formerly with the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research told the Guardian in January.
However, a recent investigation by the Washington Post concluded that the military has narrowed the technology gap by making significant upgrades to its own drone units. Commercial UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were retrofitted for combat with customized munitions, and new Russian surveillance drones improved strike capability. In April, “hexacopters” manufactured in China helped the military recapture the rebel-held town of Kawkareik near the Thai border.
The proliferation of drones and jamming devices has put Southern Myanmar in the top tier of GPS-disrupted regions after the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia war zones. Affected areas include the Irrawaddy Delta, the Bay of Bengal stretch south of Bangladesh, and the Andaman Sea coast. Despite the heavy GPS jamming in these areas, there are no reports of navigation disruptions by civilian or military aircraft.
By contrast, pilots flying over Europe have been vocal about their encounters with fading satellite signals, particularly near the Black Sea. “When we come close to Ukraine. . . a lot of our systems will fall out,” said a Scandinavian Airlines pilot featured in a Flightradar24 video on GPS jamming. “It’s really annoying,” added a fellow crew member on the Airbus flight from Copenhagen to Bangkok. The pilots later switched to the Inertial Reference System, an older but more reliable technology.
The Baltic Sea region is another notorious zone for GPS disruptions. The head of flight operations at Finnair told the BBC in May, “we get more than 100 reports per month,” but described the incidents as “a nuisance with no imminent safety impact.”
Military aircraft are not immune to GPS jamming in Europe’s conflict zones. A Royal Air Force plane carrying former British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps experienced signal interference on both legs of a flight to Poland in March. A government spokesperson said the jamming, which took place near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, was “not unusual” and “didn’t threaten the safety of the aircraft.”
At a high-level meeting in Cologne in January, aviation regulators expressed concern over the rise of jamming and spoofing incidents. “We immediately need to ensure that pilots and crews can identify the risks and know how to react and land safely,” said Luc Tytgat, acting executive director of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
Director General of IATA (International Air Transport Association) Willie Walsh said safety protocol should focus on commercial airlines which are on the “front line facing the risk.”
Walsh urged governments and regulatory agencies to share Global Satellite Navigation System data. GNSS is an umbrella term covering a gamut of space-based networks, including the U.S.-operated GPS, Russia’s GLONASS satellites, and China’s BeiDou navigation system.