Global Navigation Satellite System outage leads to navigation and surveillance degradation
Effectivity: Challenger and Global aircraft
ATA 34-55
By: Stephane Beauchamp – Avionics, Technical Services, Global Series Recently, EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) released a revision to their SIB No. 2022-02. This revision 3 dated July 5, 2024 provides a list of new observed issues and updated recommendations, based on recently reported occurrences of jamming and spoofing events.
There has been an increase in jamming and/or spoofing of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). EASA has analyzed recent data from the Network of Analysts and open sources and concluded that GNSS jamming and/or spoofing has shown further increase in the severity of its impact, as well as an overall growth of intensity and sophistication of these events. This issue particularly affects the geographical areas surrounding conflict zones, but it is also encountered in the south and eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Middle East, Baltic Sea, and Arctic areas. The list of affected flight information (FIR) regions is published on the EASA website.
The SIB provides a non-exhaustive list of some potential issues that a degradation of GNSS signal could generate. Additionally, it provides National Aviation Authorities (NAAs), Air navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) and air operators with recommendations, where these are for information only and not mandatory.
To address the identified issues, EASA recommends the implementation of mitigating measures. These measures are to be considered for the flight information regions published on EASA website and should be extended to any other area where GNSS jamming and/or spoofing is identified. Some recommendations for aircraft operators are now separated for jamming as compared with spoofing, due to the specificities of the two different cases.
For details on this SIB No. 2022-02R3 Publication and related information, please refer to the EASA website: Global Navigation Satellite System Outages and Alterations | EASA (europa.eu)
Aircraft manufacturers are recommended to support air operators, by providing guidance on how to detect suspected GNSS spoofing events and provide instructions and guidance on how to operate when affected by GNSS jamming and spoofing. Consequently, flight crews should be familiar with Bombardier Flight Operation Notifications (FON) found within the technical publication flight manuals section:
Outage due to Signal Degradation or Jamming with Associated FDE, AVNC−030 for the Global and AVNC-005 for the Challenger series.
GNSS Spoofing Causing Incorrect FMS Position, AVNC-047 for the Global and AVNC-008 for the Challenger series
On the maintenance side, an Advisory Wire 000-34-0027 Global Navigation Satellite System Spoofing is also available.
EASA is continuously monitoring and assessing the situation, however, at this time, the safety concern described in this SIB is not considered to be an unsafe condition, that would warrant Safety Directive (SD) or Airworthiness Directive (AD).