National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval has stepped in to investigate the suspected GPS spoofing incident that caused a massive technical glitch at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport last week, leading to widespread flight delays and disruptions.

According to a report by India Today, the probe will be led by the NSA’s National Cybersecurity Coordinator (NCSC) office, with active participation from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

On November 7, Delhi’s IGI Airport experienced a major systems failure that affected the Air Traffic Control (ATC) network. The glitch disrupted flight operations for several hours, leading to delays or cancellations of more than 800 flights.

Preliminary assessments suggested that multiple GPS spoofing incidents may have triggered the malfunction, compromising communication and navigation links used by air traffic controllers.

The incident has raised serious concerns about the cybersecurity resilience of India’s aviation infrastructure, particularly as modern air navigation and communication systems rely heavily on satellite-based technologies.

Sources have claimed that Doval is directly monitoring the probe, which involves the NCSC, headed by Navin Kumar Singh, who was appointed in August 2025, overseeing the investigation. The NCSC operates under the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and works closely with agencies such as the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) on national-level cybersecurity threats.

Authorities will examine the exact cause and scope of the GPS interference and determine whether it was a deliberate cyberattack, an act of intentional signal jamming, or a purely technical fault.

On November 9, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu visited the ATC Tower at Delhi Airport to review ongoing recovery efforts. He directed officials to carry out a comprehensive root-cause analysis and take measures to strengthen system redundancy and resilience.

“Over the past two days, teams from AAI, ANS, and ECIL have worked tirelessly to identify and resolve the issue while ensuring passenger safety through manual coordination. As systems are now fully restored, I have further directed officials to enhance redundancy to make our ATC network more resilient in the future,” the minister said in a post on X.

He was accompanied by Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha, AAI Chairman Vipin Kumar, and other senior officials during the inspection.

The Delhi incident serves as a wake-up call for India’s aviation and cybersecurity agencies. With air traffic in India growing rapidly and airports adopting advanced automation systems, experts say that protecting aviation infrastructure from digital interference must now be treated as a matter of national security.