Worldwide, it's an issue that is going to require changes to the infrastructure of aviation: Training, procedures, equipment. That's what I mean when I say "they should have just used VORs and ILS" shows an unsophisticated understanding of aviation safety. "Just use the training you're already supposed to have" isn't enough. We need to make sure that crew and ATC aren't just improvising when there are GPS outages. Manufacturers need to ensure that equipment has been thoroughly tested against GNSS jamming and spoofing -- The Embraer Phenom used to start "UNEXPECTED ROLLING AND YAWING OSCILLATIONS (DUTCH ROLL) AT HIGH AIRSPEEDS,"[1] after it lost GPS; recently there have been many reports of inertial navigation systems becoming "contaminated" after GPS interference such that they give completely wrong positions for the rest of the flight, even after GPS returns.
You're right that just stopping the U.S. military from jamming civilian aircraft GPS doesn't solve the problem for the rest of the globe. That will take more effort, and it's why aviation authorities and industry have been looking at the problem for years. But it would mostly solve the problem for now, in the U.S., where significant GPS interference is rare outside of military exercises.
1. https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/notice/genot_7110_...
That has less to do with GPS jamming than it does accepting a visual approach from 14 miles out with an enormous mountain they couldn't see between them and the airport.
The error as I see it is abandoning the safeguards of flying a standard instrument approach procure. RNAV or ILS, the terrain clearance is backed into the procedure. They descended below minimum safe altitude.
Anyone else firing up a jammer is going to get triangulated and arrested very quickly.
I'm not really sure where I side on this.
Ideally Defense would be able to conduct exercises without worrying about harming civilians. But that seems impossible to drive to 0.
I think the top level commenter comes across as a bit one sided. How often is due-diligence done by the pilots? Could the guidance provided be more well defined and reduce these incidences to several orders of magnitude less? Hopefully the military is not purposefully inflating incidences for nefarious purposes or instigating specific instances.
Who's going to arrest a satellite?
But for starters, a US Navy missile destroyer can kill a satellite.
If we're talking "trivially easy for a state actor," then it's not macho to say that pilots need to be able to safely conduct flights with a missing engine and a cracked windshield.