As the newspaper explains, electronic attacks render satellite navigation useless, leaving airplane pilots unsure of routes and struggling to inform others of their whereabouts. False data force planes to veer and dive to avoid phantom obstacles that don’t actually exist.
The Sun reports that over eight months until the end of March this year, 2,309 flights of Ryanair and 1,368 flights of Wizz Air
experienced satellite navigation issues in the Baltic Sea region. Problems also affected 82 British Airways flights, seven Jet2 flights, four EasyJet flights, and seven flights operated by TUI.
The newspaper recalls that in January, the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) recognized jamming and spoofing as attacks but did not indicate the perpetrators. In March, such disruptions were noticed during a flight of
British Defense Minister Grant Shapps to Poland, passing near the Kaliningrad region,
and Russia was blamed for it.
It explains that airplanes send Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcasts to inform nearby aircraft and controllers of their location. Based on these signals, the effectiveness of satellite navigation can be estimated. A weak signal may indicate jamming or false data.
GPSJAM.org admits that a weak signal does not conclusively prove jamming but adds that “areas, where a significant percentage of aircraft report
low navigation accuracy, appear to correlate well with areas of known and suspected jamming.”
Records show that the main jamming areas are the Baltic Sea region and the eastern Mediterranean. According to the analysis, the number of suspected Russian attacks has increased from less than 50 weekly last year to over 350 weekly last month.
“The Russians have long used GPS jamming as a harassment tool, projecting it across NATO borders. Wherever there is a large Russian garrison you are seeing GPS denial and there is one in Kaliningrad.
They just have that stuff switched on because there are standing orders,” Dr. Jack Watling, a military expert from the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told The Sun.
Glenn Bradley from the British Civil Aviation Authority emphasized that flying remains one of the safest forms of travel. “There are several safety protocols in place to protect navigation systems on commercial aircraft.
GPS jamming does not directly impact the navigation of an aircraft and while it’s a known issue, this does not mean an aircraft has been jammed deliberately,” he said.
