Can a GPS signal sent to a plane be spoofed?
Spoofing GPS means broadcasting a false GPS signal - This is harder than jamming GPS which can be done relatively easily by broadcasting a strong random signal at the relevent carrier frequencies.

GPS receivers use GPS ephemeris tables which tell them where exactly they should expect each satellite to be. So the false GPS signal has to look enough like a real GPS signal that the receiver will accept it and use it's transmitted data in it's calculations.

Of course, if, for example, the expansionist president of a country with advanced avionics capability decided to supply sophisticated equipment and the associated personnel to a separatist group in a neighbouring country, it might be possible for them to bring about this kind of result.

There have been reports of this kind of spoofing actually happening, so it appears to be possible.


  The U of Texas students built a GPS spoofing device for about $3,000. A pair of students, the “attackers,” then sat aboard the upper deck of the White Rose, where their GPS spoofer emitted a counterfeit signal slightly stronger than the real GPS signal.


This was a yacht at sea, presumably out of sight of land on a featureless ocean.

It may be more difficult to achieve this with an airliner, which have a variety of navigational instruments, including radio navigation beacon receivers. Inconsistent indications may alert the pilot to a problem.

Non-GPS navigational instruments/systems that may be found in an aircraft include:


VOR
DME
NDB/ADF
TACAN-DME
ADIRU