IAF aircraft on relief sortie faced GPS spoofing over Myanmar

An Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft flying a relief sortie to earthquake-hit Myanmar found its Global Positioning System (GPS) signal spoofed – was giving a wrong location – for few minutes as it entered Myanmar’s air space on March 29.

The role of China-backed rebel groups in Myanmar is being suspected for doing this.

A US made C-17 plane of the IAF that uses a GPS to navigate its route had its signal spoofed when it was flown from Agra to Yangon, Myanmar. India had launched Operation Brahma after an earthquake measuring 7.7 hit Myanmar on March 28.

The matter of signal spoofing has been reported to the IAF headquarters, sources said while confirming that the incident happened.

According to sources, when the aircraft was flying in Myanmar’s airspace, the pilots noticed that the GPS signal was being tampered with. This is called spoofing – means the navigation data that the GPS was showing to the pilots was wrong.

As per standard operating procedure (SoP), the pilots immediately shifted to the C-17’s inertial navigation system (INS). The INS is a back up and is used when a satellite breach disrupts the GPS. The INS puts the plane back on its correct course.

GPS spoofing is a type of cyber attack. In this, the navigation system of the aircraft is misled through wrong GPS signals and the plane systems get ‘confused’ and start working by considering the wrong strong signal as the correct.

Sources said the GPS system sends signals from satellites which are received through receivers on the ground. These receivers determine the location on the basis of these signals. Cyber-scammers can override the signal being transmitted from ground to give a wrong location. This could mislead the pilot that the plane is flying miles off its route.

A cyber-attack like this is done in conflict area to mislead enemy aircraft and UAVs, and also GPS-enabled long-range missiles or rockets.

The Union Civil Aviation Ministry in a written reply in Lok Sabha in March this year said pilots of civil airlines have reported 465 cases of 'GPS spoofing’ between November 2023 and February 2025 around Amritsar and Jammu region, meaning it was being done by Pakistan.