Amid conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, airlines have been forced to divert around warzones while managing new threats to their systems

The first indication that something was wrong came when the clock on the flight deck began to go backwards. The aircraft was cruising thousands of metres above Israel and as the crew noticed the error, they checked their GPS signal. The plane’s internal instruments showed it was flying at just 1,500ft, well below the cruising altitude of 38,000ft it should have been at.

Seconds later, alarms began to sound and lights flashed throughout the cockpit.