The U.S.-operated GPS has falsely located planes, people and ships, sometimes placing them at the Beirut’s international airport. Hassan Ammar/AP hide caption toggle caption Hassan Ammar/AP The U.S.-operated GPS has falsely located planes, people and ships, sometimes placing them at the Beirut’s international airport. Hassan Ammar/AP BEIRUT — For the past few months, the U.S.-operated Global Positioning System has been listing planes, people and even ships hundreds of miles from Lebanon in a surprising place — Beirut’s international airport. It’s the result of a practice called GPS “spoofing” — which sends false location signals to satellites that overwhelm the real signals. The operations, which researchers have traced to Israel, are intended to deter rockets and missiles but are at the same time increasing risks for airline passengers while forcing pilots and ship captains to abandon automated safety systems developed over decades. “I like to say that spoofing is the new jamming,” says Todd Humphreys, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin who is an expert on GPS spoofing. “Instead of …