Meaconing is the

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

and rebroadcast of

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

signals. These signals are rebroadcast on the received frequency, typically, with power higher than the original signal, to confuse enemy navigation. Consequently, aircraft or ground stations are given inaccurate bearings. Meaconing is more of a concern to personnel in navigation ratings than to radio operators. However, communications

transmitters In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

are often used to transmit navigation signals. Since communications personnel operate the transmitters, they must know how to deal with any communications problems resulting from meaconing. Successful meaconing can cause aircraft to be lured into "hot" (ambush-ready) landing zones or enemy airspace, ships to be diverted from their intended routes, bombers to expend ordnance on false targets, or ground stations to receive inaccurate bearings or position locations. The term 'meacon' is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsIran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

says it used this technique (among others) to capture a

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

RQ-170 Sentinel The Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Lockheed Martin and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While the USAF has released few detail ...

drone, causing it to crash land. Meaconing in this case could provide a drone with false altitude measurements, causing a crash landing. Meaconing is among fringe theories for some aircraft crashes, such as

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007)The flight number KAL 007 was used by air traffic control, while the public flight booking system used KE 007 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alask ...

and the

2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating Polish Air Force Flight 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his wife, Maria, ...

."To był zamach"- mówią eksperci Gazecie Polskiej (20 May 2010)
(In Polish)

Acronym

* MIJI (Meaconing, Intrusion, Jamming, and Interference)

In popular culture

In the film ''

Tomorrow Never Dies ''Tomorrow Never Dies'' is a 1997 spy film, the eighteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a screenplay by ...

'', a military

GPS signal GPS signals are broadcast by Global Positioning System satellites to enable satellite navigation. Receivers on or near the Earth's surface can determine location, time, and velocity using this information. The GPS satellite constellation is ope ...

is meaconed to send a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

off course. In the novel and miniseries of the

John J. Nance John J. Nance (born July 5, 1946) is an American pilot, attorney, aviation and healthcare safety analyst, and author. Biography Nance was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from the St. Mark's School of Texas. He earned Bachelor of ...

novel ''

Pandora's Clock ''Pandora's Clock'' (also known as ''Doomsday Virus'') is a 1996 NBC miniseries based on a novel by John J. Nance about a deadly virus on a Boeing 747-200 from Frankfurt to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Directed by Eric Laneuville, the f ...

'', an attempt to warn the airliner about an impending attack is summarily dismissed as an attempt at meaconing. The villain of ''

Die Hard 2 ''Die Hard 2'' (also known by its tagline ''Die Harder'')The film's onscreen title is ''Die Hard 2'', as also given at the initial home-video release'official website The film's original advertising used "Die Harder" as a tagline, and many rele ...

'' changes the

Dulles Airport Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fai ...

's ATC beacon altitude to below ground level, causing planes' altimeters to provide false readings, thus causing landing planes to crash.

References

{{Wiktionary Electronic countermeasures

Acronym

In popular culture

See also

References