Russian jamming hits thousands of holiday flights over the Baltic
"The Sun" reports: "Thousands of British holiday flights have been hit by suspected Russian jamming — with aviation sources branding the tactic "extremely dangerous" and a major threat to air safety." Analysts are convinced that Russian radar jamming systems are responsible.
22 April 2024 09:27
According to "The Sun", thousands of British holiday flights have been impacted by Russian signal jamming. Aviation sources have labelled this tactic as "extremely dangerous" and akin to "warfare in the air". Electronic attacks render satellite navigations useless, leaving airplanes unable to communicate their location effectively.
Ryanair said: If any location systems, such as GPS, are not functioning then the crew switch to alternate systems.". Bogus data forced planes to swerve and dive to avoid phantom obstacles that were not really there," reported "The Sun".
Near the Baltic Sea, in the span of eight months until the end of March, as many as 2,309 Ryanair flights and 1,368 Wizz Air flights registered problems with satellite navigation.
Planes report navigation issues
"The Sun" journalists, collaborating with researchers, analysed public flight logs. They discovered that the most significant disturbances occur in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.
We focused on the Baltic where 46,000 aircraft reported satnav problems between August and the end of March," stated "The Sun".
Planes send automatic dependent surveillance broadcasts to inform controllers of their location. These signals assess the performance of satellite navigation. A low-performance report signals jamming or spoofing.
Last month, the number of suspected attacks on satellite navigation exceeded 350 weekly. This marks a substantial rise from last year, during which there were about 50 such attacks weekly.
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Signal was jammed for 30 minutes
In March, Russia jammed the GPS signal in the plane carrying UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps on his journey to Poland and back. British media reported that while the plane was flying near a Russian oblast, the GPS signal was jammed for approximately 30 minutes.
As a result, pilots were compelled to use alternative methods to ascertain the aeroplane's location, and this occurred during the return journey as well.
Interference from Vladimir Putin’s forces includes jamming and spoofing. Jamming drowns out genuine signals from satellites, including GPS and Europe’s Galileo system. Spoofing uses bogus signals to trick aircraft into thinking they are somewhere they are not," informed "The Sun".
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency warned in January about "a sudden increase in the number of attacks consisting of jamming and spoofing" but did not specify the perpetrators.
