CHESTER, NS – KTEQ GEOSPACE has presented its initial research findings of the GPS anomaly reported by the pilots of both Porter Airlines Flight PD-2287 and Air Canada Express Flight AC-8121 on March 23, 2023 while preparing to conduct an RNAV (GNSS) approach to Runway 14 at Halifax Stanfield International Airport (CYHZ) in Nova Scotia. As a result of the GPS anomaly, the pilots of both aircraft opted to use the ground-based Instrument Landing System (ILS) instead. Both aircraft landed without further incident. The founder of the company, Ken Johnston, points to the source of the GPS anomaly as being the strong geomagnetic storm that occurred that day.
The scope of the original research was expanded to include nineteen pilot reported GPS anomalies and outages detailed in the Transport Canada Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS) between Jan 1-Apr 30, 2023 including a review of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) Quarterly Performance Analysis Report and GPS and space weather data available from Natural Resources Canada for the period.
“All indications to date are that a G3 strong geomagnetic storm, reported by the US NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, caused significant degradation of the US FAA WAAS Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance (LPV) service in Canada on March 23, prompting the GPS anomaly reported by the pilots of both Porter PD-2287 and Air Canada AC-8121. In addition, geomagnetic storm activity levels may have contributed to other GPS issues reported by pilots to Transport Canada on Jan 13, Feb 16, Mar 20 and Apr 23. In summary, approximately 30 percent of the pilot reported GPS anomaly occurrences in Canada in 2023 have been attributed to increased geomagnetic activity that caused significant degradation of the performance of the US FAA WAAS service,” Ken concluded.
About KTEQ GEOSPACE
KTEQ GEOSPACE was established in 2015 to address the increasing threats to aviation and the transportation industry, telecommunication and emergency services as a result of the growing proliferation of GPS jammers and concerns of the impacts of Radio Frequency Interference to GPS. To learn more about KTEQ GEOSPACE and GPS anomalies impacting aviation in Canada in 2023 visit https://kteqgeospace.com/gps-anomaly-research-2023/