What If GPS Doesnt?

Anything that can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible moment-so states Finagles corollary to Murphys Law. This notion is drilled into pilots from the beginning, so that it becomes second nature to have a plan to handle all sorts of potential failures that could be experienced in flight. Engine failure: check. Instrument and system malfunction: got it covered. Communication failure: no problem. GPS failure... Uhhh, what? Hang on a minute.

IFR Staff

Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

GPS is a vulnerable single point of failure susceptible to various interferences, yet pilots are often unprepared for outages due to poor NOTAM communication and over-reliance on GPS.
A GPS outage can severely impact navigation and approaches, especially for general aviation at airports reliant solely on GPS, and can also affect ATC surveillance via ADS-B.
Pilots must maintain proficiency in traditional navigation skills (e.g., VORs, raw-data approaches) and consider retaining backup equipment, as the FAA's VOR decommissioning and backup plans (VOR MON, DME/DME RNAV) don't fully address GA needs.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Anything that can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible moment—so states Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law. This notion is drilled into pilots from the beginning, so that it becomes second nature to have a plan to handle all sorts of potential failures that could be experienced in flight. Engine failure: check. Instrument and system malfunction: got it covered. Communication failure: no problem. GPS failure… Uhhh, what? Hang on a minute.

A reader recently told us about a GPS outage while flying VFR along airways over Arizona. The pilot reported no GPS signal for around 100 NM. Other general aviation and airline traffic in the area reported a similar loss, and ATC seemed to be taken by surprise as well.