NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
Air carrier flight crew reported GPS jamming resulted in intermittent GPS failures while on RNP approach.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narratives
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
Reporter 1
Briefed and flew an arrival connected to the RNP Z approach. Descending into El Paso, the GPSs started to fail, both, in and out of service for a bit. Pointed this out to Approach Control and they informed us of White Sands Missile Range doing GPS jamming and might effect our GPSs. It did. Conditions very VMC and visibility was very clear. We were provided vectors to final and automation was eventually disconnected. The GPS failures contributed to my slow calls to get configured early enough. I was late to configure, faster than I should have been and above glide slope. Anticipated corrections for the aircraft parameters were made and communication with the Captain was clear and concise and calm. By the book, we should have gone around at 500 ft. We didn't. With 12000 ft. of runway available, I landed well inside the TD Zone, smoothly. The ACARS Approach Report Below 500 ft. belongs in the Hall of Shame. Good debrief post Shutdown.
Reporter 2
During an approach in to ELP a late configuration caused a higher than normal rate of decent. With a 12000 foot runway and the touchdown zone made we continued the approach. We did land very smoothly in the touchdown zone. This all occurred in VMC conditions with good visibility. Crew coordination and communication between myself and the first officer were clear and concise throughout the arrival and approach. In hindsight we should have executed a go-around. Some contributing factors were GPS anomalies that we were experiencing. We reported these to ATC and were informed that the White Sands Missile Range was conducting a GPS jamming exercise. This did in fact cause some distractions and most likely contributed to a late/slow configuration. We conducted a thorough debrief regarding this situation after the flight.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Aircraft Equipment Problem
- ATC Issue
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Aircraft · Environment - Non Weather Related · Software and Automation · Human Factors
- Primary Problem
- Environment - Non Weather Related
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.