GPS interference caused the FAA to reroute Texas Air Traffic

[upnorth]

Content source

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/cause-is-unknown-for-mysterious-gps-outage-that-rerouted-texas-air-traffic/

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.” An advisory issued around the same time by the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, meanwhile, reported the region was "experiencing GPS anomalies that are dramatically impacting" flights in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth and neighboring airports. It went on to say that some of the airports were relying on the use of navigation systems that predated GPS.

GPS interference caused the FAA to reroute Texas air traffic. Experts stumped

Episode lasting almost 2 days prompted the closure of a runway at Dallas airport.

arstechnica.com

 

[TedCruz]

GPS interference caused the FAA to reroute Texas air traffic. Experts stumped

Episode lasting almost 2 days prompted the closure of a runway at Dallas airport.

arstechnica.com

Fascinating, especially since space has been quiet yesterday. If it was on October 9th then yeah I could see that since on that day we have received a massive gamma ray burst GRB221009A one of the largest ones in this century. It was pinpointed to a star 2.4 billion light years away going supernova and turning into a black hole. The event was powerful enough that it resulted in current conduction on Earth's surface (so it fully penetrated our ionosphere). This type of events could disturb the local space weather E1, E2 and E3 bands which will then take hours to days to relax back into nominal stable fields which in turn can disturb low powered transmitters like the GPS.


Here is a pic of the event, 1 hour after it happened.


Solar wind and magnetic flux was also low so it wasn't an extra terrestrial cause.