Two passenger jets forced to turn around mid-flight in latest 'Russian jamming' of planes' GPS systems
29 April 2024, 14:09
Two more passenger jets have been forced to turn around mid-flight due to suspected interference by Russia.
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Russia has been accused of toying with the risk of sparking an ‘extremely dangerous’ air disaster by interfering with planes’ GPS systems.
Two Finnair flights from Helsinki to Tartu in Estonia had to return to Finland on Thursday and Friday due to issues with their navigation which left them unable to fly safely.
Experts believe the planes’ GPS signals may have been jammed.
Ministers in the Baltics have warned Russia is acting in an ‘extremely dangerous’ manner.
Earlier this month The Sun reported that in the space of eight months until the end of March, 2,309 Ryanair flights and 1,368 Wizz Air flights reported issues with their navigation systems.
A further 82 British Airways flights, seven Jet2 flights, and four EasyJet flights also reported issues.
According to an analysis by The Sun working with GPSJAM.com. the only airline which was unaffected was Virgin Atlantic, which does not run any flights through the Baltic region.
“Areas where a significant percentage of aircraft report low navigation accuracy seem to correlate well with areas of known and suspected jamming.”
A Nato official told the New Scientist last month: “We have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming…affecting aviation and shipping.
“Russia has a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfare.”
The GPS and other signals were blocked for almost 30 minutes in a "widely irresponsible" act of "electronic warfare".
Grant Shapps was travelling on the RAF’s Envoy, a Dassault 900LX, to visit troops in Mazury, a military base near the Belarus border, when the aircraft’s pilots lost access to the GPS.
Mobile phones could no longer connect to the internet and the aircraft was forced to use alternative methods to determine its location.
The aircraft was passing by Kaliningrad, a Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania, on Wednesday morning when the attack happened.
On the return flight Russia blocked the system again, this time for 30 minutes, as Mr Shapps, who was accompanied by journalists, flew back to London on Wednesday evening.
It is unclear if Shapps himself would have been deliberately targeted, although the flight path was visible to aircraft tracking websites.
Shapps, who has been defence secretary since August, had just accused President Putin of “sabre-rattling” and acting irresponsibly by saying Moscow was ready for a nuclear war.
