Satellite navigation temporarily goes blind in Chinese city, crashes apps

The eastern Chinese city of Nanjing experienced a six-hour satellite navigation blackout affecting nearly 10 million residents. The disruption impacted GPS and BeiDou-dependent services such as car navigation, food delivery, ride-hailing, and drone operations, causing severe position drifting and loss of road information. Local authorities described the event as a “systemic anomaly,” with users unable to rely on standard positioning data, which significantly disrupted daily life and business activities. A technical analysis by the Nanjing Satellite Application Industry Association attributed the outage to “temporary interference and suppression” of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals, specifically targeting civilian frequency bands of both BeiDou and GPS. This interference prevented receivers from accurately detecting positioning signals, rendering navigation devices ineffective even if they had offline maps. The Chinese state agency did not clarify who was responsible or the reasons behind the jamming but suggested it might have been related to temporary signal control measures for security during a major event, which would align with standard industry safety protocols. Experts