With the rise of GPS jamming and spoofing around the world, Flightradar24 has adapted flight tracking to show the most accurate possible path. By using multiple technologies to track aircraft we can ensure that even flights subject to GPS jamming and spoofing can be tracked accurately.
Flightradar24 uses a handful of different technologies to track aircraft around the world. The main technology, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), sends a wealth of information about a flight—including GNSS position, altitude, speed, vertical rate, track, and more. For aircraft not equipped with ADS-B, Flightradar24 uses Multilateration (MLAT), which allows us to compute the position of the aircraft based on the time difference of arrival of the aircraft’s radio signals to our receivers.
When encountering GPS jamming and spoofing, aircraft that use ADS-B are susceptible to position errors. The map below shows areas of GPS jamming and spoofing, with areas of high interference shown in red. Interference is based on the reported Navigation Integrity Category (NIC) value sent by the aircraft’s transponder. Lower NIC values indicate interference.
How does GPS jamming affect a flight?
On a recent flight from Warsaw to Paris, a Wizz Air A321neo was subject to GPS spoofing, which means the aircraft’s GPS receiver was led to believe it was somewhere it was not. In this case, the position reported put the aircraft inside Kaliningrad at the start of the flight. The map below shows the inaccurate ADS-B positions from the aircraft’s transponder in purple and the Flightradar24-calculated MLAT positions showing the aircraft’s actual path in green.
In some cases, when an aircraft encounters GPS interference, the transponder may not recover for the duration of the flight even after the GPS signal has normalized.
Countering GPS jamming with MLAT
By calculating MLAT positions for all flights, Flightradar24 is able to counter the effects of GPS interference in real time and show a more correct path for an aircraft. We recently completed a major update to our MLAT calculations, allowing us to calculate MLAT positions using just three receivers. Previously, four receivers were necessary to calculate positions. This improvement has allowed us to increase the area in which we are able to show MLAT positions, including some of the areas of the world experiencing the greatest amount of GPS jamming and spoofing.
Because of how MLAT positions are calculated, they are not as precise as GPS derived positions. However, as a counter to wild deviations caused by GPS spoofing or jamming, they have become an extremely useful tool for showing accurate flight paths. In May 2025, 7% of flights that are normally tracked via ADS-B were tracked with MLAT due to GPS interference.
Unfortunately, Flightradar24 is not yet able to counter all instances of GPS jamming and spoofing. In order to show MLAT positions, we need to be able to track the aircraft with three receivers simultaneously. In certain areas, that is not yet possible. In June 2025, during the Iran-Israel war, GPS spoofing erroneously put aircraft above Iran. Seeing multiple aircraft completing perfect circles in the same position is one of the most common signs of GPS spoofing.
How does GPS jamming affect the pilots?
While GPS jamming and spoofing can impact the position of the aircraft on Flightradar24, it can also impact the systems on board the aircraft. Modern commercial aircraft are built with multiple redundant navigational methods that allow them to safely operate during GPS interference, but some systems that rely on GPS may become inoperative during a flight. We’ve previously documented that on a flight with SAS between Copenhagen and Bangkok aboard the airline’s Airbus A350.
All signs point to the continued rise of GPS jamming and spoofing, so aerospace companies are in the process of making receivers that are capable of operating normally in spite of interference. Certification and installation may be years away for those devices. In the meantime, we’ll calculate MLAT positions where we are able to show the most accurate position as possible.
20 Responses
These technical explanations by flightradar24 are GREAT. Thank you. Keep them coming.
Excellent write up to understand the
Basics of advanced technology of GPS jamming/ spoofing and its
effect on flying aircraft with supporting illustrative maps.
Please put more of such advanced technology write ups on the website.
INS for the comeback!
40 years ago mechanical gyroscope INS were able to cross the pond LHR-NWK with less than 10m error.
Now that laser interferometry has made solid state gyroscope a dollar part, the eINS can once again keep aircraft safe.
INS is a primary souce of navigation onboard long houl flights
They wont be using ‘dollar’ digital laser ring gyroscopes for commercial airliners. Maybe for drones and ordered on Alibaba. Even the ones for autonomous cars can be $10,000 each. Commercial aviation grade can be $160K plus each
We ran submerged for 2-3 months, sat on VERY SPECIFIC Lat-Lon coordinates for days at a time – ALL on a Sperry INS…
And used LORAN-C on the surface!!
I was onboard a several BA flights to and from Warsaw over the past weeks and using the GPS receiver on my phone could see we were over Kaliningrad for quite some time (which we were not!). This is clearly a beam formed GPS spoofer targeting civil aviation – it’s not comforting to see aboard a commercial airliner!
Great technical approach on the MLAT resolution. Do you always highlight it in a different colour?
Hi Anthony, I had the same experience on a Lufthansa flight from Stockholm to FRA.
For quite a while my GPS tracker showed my position near Kaliningrad going around in a narrow circle.
Really an irritating experience!
Thank you for the explanation
Should use GNSS jammers instead of GPS jammer language. People might think that EU, Russia, China aren’t getting jammed too. The planes are equipped with GNSS receivers multiple signals are being jammed and spoofed
How does the GPS spoofing work? Like how are flights deep in Western Europe getting their GPS signals interfered with?
Interesting article, thank you. Concise and interesting indeed.
Knew that this was happening but not on such a widespread scale.
Presume a lot are military causes, Israel and Iran, so that either side could try and spoof positions to prevent accurate delivery of ordnance Others seem to be illogical or just malicious in their effects.
A sorry statement on the word.
I really appreciate being able to participate in this wonderful experience – one which would never have been available to me without FlightRadar24. Great Job FR24.
So good to get knowledge of this topic
Thank you
Spoofing is mostly done by transmitters on ground level. They are sending fake time signals who are received stronger by the airplanes than the weak satellite signals. Luckely for us the ground wave of such spoofing signals does not go so far so we can still receive a good gps signal for synchronising the mlat.
I wonder wether certain military aircraft like the B-2 Spirit are immune to GPS spoofing/jamming
I am a proud Radarcape to FR24 feeder, feeding ADS-B and MLAT data to flightradar24.
Not sure how much my feed helps going around GPS spoofing, but I hope it help at least a little.
Thank you FR24 for providing such a great service to the public and shame on those who are doing this spoofing on disrespect of human life (We know who you are. We ALL know who YOU orcs are.)
Startup Sequence
2024-12-29 13:26:42(X) Waiting for GPS time to settle
2024-12-29 13:27:18(c) Waiting for GPS time to settle
2024-12-29 14:54:05(T) Command: fr24feed –fr24key=–mlat=yes
2024-12-29 14:54:05(T)
[main][i]FR24 Feeder/Decoder
[main][i]Version: 1.0.45-0/generic
Is it only GPS that is affected, or GLONASS, Galileo, etc too? Are they all knocked out together, or is it more usually “just” one or some but not all?
Also, don’t your multilateration receivers sync their timestamps using GPS? Does the interference affect that too? I’ve always had in the back of my mind the idea that the syncing could be done by comparing arrival times packets received from different aircraft by different receivers. tempered by that also every level of indirection would decrease accuracy too, so maybe there’s a limit to how far you can push those “unanchored” techniques.
Excellent, clear article.
Thank you.
Good thing we still invest in keeping older and reliable systems like MLAT work at present days.
[ and invest in lots of small future-jammer-destroy drones ]