Episode lasting almost 2 days prompted the closure of a runway at Dallas airport:
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of mysterious GPS interference that, over the past few days, has closed one runway at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and prompted some aircraft in the region to be rerouted to areas where signals were working properly.
The interference first came to light on Monday afternoon when the FAA issued an advisory over ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service). It warned flight personnel and air traffic controllers of GPS interference over a 40-mile swath of airspace near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The advisory read in part: "ATTN ALL AIRCRAFT. GPS REPORTED UNRELIABLE WITHIN 40 NM OF DFW."
[...] GPSjam.org, a website that monitors GPS interference in real time, published this map that showed the specific areas where aircraft were reporting unreliable GPS.
[...] Then, around 11 pm Dallas time, the interference ended. As mysteriously as the interference began, it had stopped. In an online interview, Wiseman wrote:
This GPS interference stood out because it was significant, covered a relatively large area, and didn't look like the typical interference I see in the United States which is almost always clearly associated with military testing or training in a military operating area. My understanding is that lack of GPS isn't an emergency for aircraft, but it can definitely be annoying and lead to delays and even canceled flights. I don't know what caused this interference or whether it was intentional, but it almost certainly came from a piece of electronic equipment and not a natural phenomenon. GPS is kind of a weird piece of the world's infrastructure in that it's so important, but also very easy to break through intentional or accidental jamming. I hope it continues to stay usable!
[...] "We don't know if there are malicious actors behind this incident, or if it's a result of interference," Josh Lospinoso, co-founder and CEO of aircraft and transportation security company Shift5 and a former US Cyber Command official, said in an interview. "Interference is a timely issue for airports and airlines right now. There was a big push by wireless carriers to roll out 5G in airports a few months ago that was a terrible idea from the perspective of how many legacy devices in aircraft rely on the wireless bands that are impeded by 5G."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday October 25 2022, @03:57AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by esperto123 on Tuesday October 25 2022, @10:43AM (1 child)
an interesting case happen a few years back, I think it was in a airport around DC, where there was from time to time interference on GPS, they noticed it happened somewhat around the same time in specific week days, then they caught a truck driver that was driving around with a cheapass GPS jammer to not be tracked by the company he worked for (or something of the sort) but the jammer was outputting a huge amount of power and interfering with the service several miles away.
My guess would be that it is a similar situation.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ox0000 on Tuesday October 25 2022, @10:50AM
There's some irony in getting tracked (down) not just because of your jamming, but also via your jammer... :/
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday October 25 2022, @04:43AM (1 child)
Bouncing ham radio signals off the ionosphere is well known.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ionospheric+ham+radio+bounce [duckduckgo.com]
Something tells me the source is far far away, and likely not hostile.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @11:02AM
You don't get any bounce with the frequencies that GPS operates at because GPS couldn't work if the signals couldn't get through the atmosphere from the satellites.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @09:15AM (3 children)
On the one hand, I am aware that one of the big reasons planes still have pilots is because the public is not ready for fully autonomous planes, even though airline pilots don't actually _do_ much in their little cockpit.
On the other hand, isn't this exactly what pilots are for: when the automatic system fails, take over and 'manually' land the friggin' plane or make it take off with all their experience and shit (which, for certain personnel, atrophied by being nothing but meat-bags/dead weight in a chair in front of the plane, doing nothing for hundreds of consecutive flight hours)?
Or in other words, since a GPS malfunction lead to actual runway closures: explain to me again what the pilots are for?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:15PM (1 child)
Poo poo all you want. I don't want a bunch of unmanned planes in the air. That just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Look at what hijackers did on 9/11. Now, think of remote piloted unmanned systems, with a 0-day bug that allows anyone with an internet connection to take one for a joy ride. Sure, but no one would be so stupid as to allow that or make that possible. Keep telling yourself that.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @10:13PM
I don't mean to sound accusatory, but that's just how I come across:
You don't get the GP's question: it's not about whether unmanned planes are or aren't desirable, it's about current planes still having pilots on board, and that despite them having pilots on board, who can or should be able to deal with 'sensor outage', not actually dealing (or being allowed to deal) with that scenario.
The question is: what is the value of having the pilots on board if they cannot be deployed/used in a scenario in which they clearly would add value. The question is: what _are_ the pilots for then because it's apparently not "flying the plane"?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:16PM
Sensor outage is a problem. And I can see that a GPS outage could temporarily mess up a landing approach.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:31PM
So how exactly do they not know what caused it?
I'd think that with as much money as is at stake, as soon as they started getting reports of interference they'd have a signal-tracking plane/drone in the air figuring out exactly where the interfering signal is coming from.