Qatar Suspends Navigation Amid Widespread GPS Failures

Qatar’s Ministry of Transport has temporarily suspended all vessel movements in its territorial waters, citing a “technical fault in the GPS” that has disrupted maritime navigation routes.

The decision, announced on Saturday, comes amid a regional surge in GPS interference incidents. According to data from maritime analytics firm Windward, hundreds of ships in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz are experiencing severe signal disruptions daily - in some cases, Automatic Identification System (AIS) trackers have falsely displayed vessels as being located far inland.

The disruption poses a serious challenge for tankers and LNG carriers operating from Qatar’s key export terminals. State-owned QatarEnergy has already imposed restrictions, suspending nighttime navigation between 18:00 and 05:00, citing heightened safety risks linked to GPS spoofing.

Reports of GPS tampering in global waters have been rising for several years. What was once considered a rare cyber inconvenience has evolved into a major navigational threat, with affected regions now including the Red Sea, Black Sea, Persian Gulf, and South China Sea.

At satellite communications company Marlink, the scale of the problem has grown exponentially - from one report every two weeks in 2024 to over 150 separate vessel alerts in a single day by mid-2025.

The risks are not theoretical. In June 2025, two tankers collided and caught fire south of the Strait of Hormuz following GPS spoofing. A month earlier, the 7,000 TEU MSC Antonia ran aground near Jeddah after its GPS data was manipulated, with vessel tracking systems falsely showing it stranded inland on another continent.

Maritime authorities across the region are now intensifying monitoring and urging ship operators to rely on alternative navigational systems until signal stability is restored.