The problem here is the assumption that if the US mil weren’t jamming GPS it wouldn’t be getting jammed. GPS is trivially easy to jam for any state actor, and it’s not “macho” to say that pilots always need to be able to safely conduct flights in its absence.
In this case it was an own-goal. If the U.S. military hadn't jammed this flight's GPS it wouldn't have been jammed.
Worldwide, it's an issue that is going to require changes to the infrastructure of aviation: Training, procedures, equipment. That's what I mean when I say "they should have just used VORs and ILS" shows an unsophisticated understanding of aviation safety. "Just use the training you're already supposed to have" isn't enough. We need to make sure that crew and ATC aren't just improvising when there are GPS outages. Manufacturers need to ensure that equipment has been thoroughly tested against GNSS jamming and spoofing -- The Embraer Phenom used to start "UNEXPECTED ROLLING AND YAWING OSCILLATIONS (DUTCH ROLL) AT HIGH AIRSPEEDS,"[1] after it lost GPS; recently there have been many reports of inertial navigation systems becoming "contaminated" after GPS interference such that they give completely wrong positions for the rest of the flight, even after GPS returns.
You're right that just stopping the U.S. military from jamming civilian aircraft GPS doesn't solve the problem for the rest of the globe. That will take more effort, and it's why aviation authorities and industry have been looking at the problem for years. But it would mostly solve the problem for now, in the U.S., where significant GPS interference is rare outside of military exercises.
1. https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/notice/genot_7110_...
As far as I know, that assumption generally holds.
If we're talking "trivially easy for a state actor," then it's not macho to say that pilots need to be able to safely conduct flights with a missing engine and a cracked windshield.
The US military over US territory are the only ones who can jam GPS at the scale being talked about.
Anyone else firing up a jammer is going to get triangulated and arrested very quickly.
Remember the parable about the Navy destroyer vs. the lighthouse?
Who's going to arrest a satellite?
There are so many things wrong with this comparison I don't know where to start.
But for starters, a US Navy missile destroyer can kill a satellite.
I think the GP assumption is that there is a bad actor intent on serious harm.
I'm not really sure where I side on this.
Ideally Defense would be able to conduct exercises without worrying about harming civilians. But that seems impossible to drive to 0.
I think the top level commenter comes across as a bit one sided. How often is due-diligence done by the pilots? Could the guidance provided be more well defined and reduce these incidences to several orders of magnitude less? Hopefully the military is not purposefully inflating incidences for nefarious purposes or instigating specific instances.