Overview
- An IndiGo Airbus A320 completed the first confirmed commercial‑jet LPV landing using GAGAN at Udaipur on Saturday, a DGCA‑supervised operation that marks the first full‑sized passenger jet to use the system in India.
- GAGAN is an SBAS developed by ISRO and AAI that uses 15 precisely surveyed ground reference stations to measure GPS errors and broadcasts real‑time corrections via GSAT‑8 and GSAT‑10.
- The system includes integrity monitoring that warns pilots within seconds if a corrected signal cannot be trusted, which is why regulators allow LPV approaches that give both lateral and vertical guidance without ground ILS equipment.
- AAI has already published 23 LPV procedures with plans to expand many more and airlines are fitting more aircraft with SBAS capability after IndiGo introduced LPV on ATR turboprops in 2022.
- NavIC, India’s independent positioning constellation, suffered an atomic‑clock failure on March 13, 2026, reducing its resilience and underscoring that GAGAN cannot substitute for a sovereign positioning system.