Taiwan’s defence ministry says navigation systems ‘operating normally’
- Island’s military and civilian aviation systems have not been disrupted, according to ministry spokesman
- GPSJam website reported medium to high levels of inaccuracy from planes flying over Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu
Defence ministry spokesman Major General Sun Li-fang on Wednesday said navigation systems in Taiwan were working normally when asked by a reporter at a news conference.
“We also received news of this in the morning, but so far all Republic of China Armed Forces systems are operating normally,” he said, referring to Taiwan’s military. “We also made an initial inquiry to other government departments to understand the issue and, so far, civilian aviation seems not to have been disrupted.”
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Sun said the ministry was investigating whether claims that navigation systems were being disrupted were part of an information warfare strategy, where false information is used to confuse or mislead an enemy.
From Saturday to Monday, GPSJam – a website that shows the accuracy of plane navigation systems – has reported medium to high levels of inaccuracy from planes flying over the northern Taiwanese cities of Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu. It reported that less than 2 per cent of flights in the surrounding areas had low levels of inaccuracy.
GPSJam collects data from ADS-B Exchange, a flight-tracking website that relies on people – many of them aviation enthusiasts – to record the position, altitude, speed and aircraft type when planes pass over data-collection devices they set up near their homes, airports and flight paths.
A plane transmits its location with a transponder on board to help air traffic control and other aircraft identify it – but the device can be switched off and the data can be spoofed.