In what may be the first civil aviation accident involving GPS jamming, an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 crashed in December after reportedly being hit by debris from an exploding anti-aircraft missile near its destination in Grozny. While it appears that local GPS jamming against drones was occurring, it is not known whether this contributed to the accident. However, blockage of navigation signals likely was not helpful during an extremely stressful situation for the unfortunate pilots, both of whom died, along with a flight attendant and 35 passengers.
Jamming and spoofing of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals continues to be a serious issue, and while it seems to be confined to conflict zones, it can happen anywhere to any aircraft that uses GNSS for navigation. GPS is a type of GNSS, as are other systems such as Russia’s Glonass, China’s Beidou, and Europe’s Galileo.
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