New Delhi: Barely hours after the US Secretary of State marco rubio As soon as it landed in Delhi on Saturday, the capital’s IGI airport once again became the target of GPS spoofing.About 10 to 12 aircraft flying close to the airport on Saturday evening and night reported a threat not seen on this scale after a few months. Government agencies are investigating the sudden recurrence of GPS spoofing – a cyber attack where fake radio signals are transmitted to override real satellite signals – and that too at the time of the VVIP visit.Air traffic control immediately increased the distance between incoming aircraft to allow more time to safely guide them to the airport using radar vectors. This resulted in overcrowding and some problems flight delay.“When spoofing occurs, we switch to the pre-GPS days of flying, which means flying from one point to another instead of going straight to the destination. This means greater monitoring of the status of aircraft,” air traffic controllers said.Below 14,000 feet, planes headed towards Delhi generally have a difference of 3 nautical miles. On Saturday night it was increased to 5 NM. “This impacts capacity as Delhi can normally handle 42 arrivals an hour. When aircraft have to fly using radar vectors or without GPS this number comes down to about 30 or even less,” air traffic controllers said.Broadly speaking, airliners face two types of GPS problems – jamming commonly used by militaries in war zones to avoid giving away the location of military assets, including aircraft; And hoaxes are being used by miscreants to confuse pilots in conflict zones from Pakistan to the Middle East, Türkiye and Ukraine. Spoofing distorts GPS signals, resulting in the pilot receiving a false indication of his location: up to 2,500 km away from the actual location.