GPS jamming in South Africa today

Last updated: 7 November 2026, 04:50 UTC

Home · Regions · South Africa

South Africa today: 7.5% of monitored areas are affected.

Background

The best-documented jamming in South Africa is on the ground. In September 2014 police seized 17 jamming devices that they linked to hijackings, especially of trucks, and members of the communications regulator, ICASA, confirmed at the scene that the devices were illegal (Midrand Reporter, September 2014). TechCentral described criminals using such devices to block vehicle tracking systems (TechCentral, August 2014), and the tracking company Ctrack warned in 2015 that jamming was becoming more frequent, which is a vendor's account (FOCUS on Transport, December 2015).

We found no published report from a South African aviation authority of a specific jamming or spoofing event. The country's aeronautical information publication warns that disruption to GPS could degrade the service, with any restrictions advised by NOTAM (South African AIP, 2021). IATA named the Cape Town flight region in July 2025 as an area where its flight data showed a risk (IATA, July 2025), though neither Johannesburg nor Cape Town is in EASA's tables of 14 October 2026 (EASA, October 2026). For the reporting on interference in South Africa, and who it is attributed to, see: Africa.

Only hexagons whose centre lies inside South Africa's borders are counted, so hexagons in neighbouring countries and out at sea are left out. The map is framed on -35 to -22 and 16.4 to 33.

Cities and airports

Place	Share affected	Aircraft affected
Cape Town (CPT)	2.4%	11 of 451
Johannesburg O. R. Tambo (JNB)	0.9%	9 of 1,051
Durban King Shaka (DUR)	not enough data

Aircraft within 100 km of each city that reported low GPS accuracy. A row opens the live map over that city.

By altitude

South Africa: No clear altitude pattern. How this is read.

Aircraft observations by barometric altitude, latest update
Altitude	Aircraft	Share affected
Below 5,000 ft	152	3.3%
5,000 to 15,000 ft	1,069	1.0%
15,000 to 30,000 ft	1,905	0.7%
Above 30,000 ft	3,726	0.8%

South Africa: an aircraft is counted in each layer it crosses, so the rows do not add up.

Embed this map

Paste this where the South Africa map should appear. It is free to use and updates by itself.

<iframe src="https://gpsinterference.com/embed?region=south-africa&amp;names=on" width="640" height="400"
        style="border:0;width:100%;max-width:960px" loading="lazy"
        title="Live GPS interference map: South Africa"></iframe>
<p>Live map: <a href="https://gpsinterference.com/">GPS Interference</a></p>

Open the embed studio to choose the map style, altitude, height and place names, and see a preview.

Nearby

Pages near South Africa: Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya, Senegal.

Regions. Methodology.

South Africa. Low reported accuracy points to interference but does not prove it, and the map cannot locate a transmitter or say who is responsible. How the map is made.