Qantas warns flight crews about radio jamming and GPS jamming from Chinese warships lurking off the coast of Australia
- The airline updated its standing flight order manual with instructions on what to do
- Prominent people claiming to be Chinese military contacted planes via VHF radio
- Other planes had GPS stuck ‘on the Australian Northwest shelf’
Qantas has warned its pilots about radio interference from people claiming to be Chinese military and GPS jamming from Chinese warships.
The airline updated its standing flight order manual Thursday to include policies on what to do if crews encounter this.
The policy update informed pilots that the flights had been met with hostile action, sometimes in close proximity to Australia, but safety was not compromised.
“Qantas Group aircraft have experienced VHF interference from stations purporting to represent the Chinese military…in the Western Pacific and South China Sea,” the update began.
Qantas has warned its pilots about radio interference from people claiming to be Chinese military and GPS jamming from Chinese warships.
“In addition, the Group’s aircraft have experienced GPS jamming suspected to originate from warships operating on the North West Australian shelf.”
VHF stands for ‘very high frequency’ and covers radio waves at frequencies from 30 to 300 MHz and are used for many types of radio communication.
The new policy instructed pilots to stay on course if they received “unwarranted VHF communications/interference” claiming to be Chinese military.
They must then report it to the air traffic control authority and submit an incident report in the Intelex software after landing.
Qantas told the pilots that the planes had experienced a GPS jam suspected to have originated from warships (pictured) operating on Australia’s north-west shelf.
Qantas notified staff of the policy update in the same week Australia announced a landmark deal to buy US nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal.
Australia will have Virginia-class submarines built for its navy by the US and will be taught how to operate US nuclear submarines and weapons systems.
The RAN will then switch to locally built nuclear submarines based on the next generation of British designs, still with American weapons systems.
Australia also announced Friday morning that it would buy 220 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US for around $1.3 billion.
