Thousands of British holiday flights attacked by ‘extremely dangerous Russian jamming’. This claims a huge material of the English newspaper “Sun”. Aviation sources described the tactic as a serious threat to air safety. The media publishes maps with the degree of danger of jamming. It includes the airports in Burgas and Varna, where the British mostly fly with tourist charters. There, the danger is marked as “medium”.
Electronic attacks render satellite navigation useless, so planes are unsure of routes. False data forced captains to swerve and “dive” to avoid obstacles that didn’t actually exist.
In the eight months to the end of March, 2,309 Ryanair flights and 1,368 Wizz Air planes reported satellite navigation problems in the Baltic region. Also affected were 82 British Airways flights, seven Jet2 flights, four EasyJet flights and seven operated by TUI.
Russian systems jam real signals from satellites, including GPS and Europe’s Galileo system. They used false signals to trick the planes into thinking they were in completely different places. An industry source told The Sun: “The information from the Russians is false. This is extremely dangerous.”
In January, the European air safety watchdog described jamming and tampering as “attacks” but did not say who was behind them. Luke Titgat, head of EASA, said: “We have seen a sharp increase in attacks against these systems, which poses a safety risk.” A Sun team was on board an RAF (Royal Air Force) plane with British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps last month when it was silenced while flying through Poland, near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Passengers are usually unaware of the attack. But the paper teamed up with researchers from GPSJAM.org to analyze public flight logs. Aircraft send automatic dependent surveillance broadcasts to notify others nearby and let controllers know where they are. These alerts include an estimate of how well the sat nav is working. Poor performance indicates jamming or falsification of information.
GPSJAM acknowledges that the signals do not definitively prove interference. BUT! “Areas where a significant percentage of aircraft reported low navigation accuracy appeared to correlate well with areas of known and suspected jamming,” the analysis said.
The logs show hotspots in the Baltic, Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean.
The research focused on the Baltics, where 46,000 aircraft reported problems with satellite navigation between August and the end of March. The only major UK carrier not affected is Virgin Atlantic, as its planes do not fly through the region.
Alleged Russian attacks have increased from less than 50 a week last year to more than 350 a week last month. War expert Dr Jack Watling of the RUSI think tank said: “The Russians have long used GPS jamming as a tool of harassment, broadcasting it across NATO borders. “Everywhere there is a large Russian garrison, you see a GPS denial, and there is one in Kaliningrad. They just included these things because there are standing orders.” Defense officials also accused Russia of jamming GPS signals over a military base in Cyprus. Tampering and jamming is happening mostly in Ukraine, where Kiev and Moscow are trying to thwart the accuracy of missiles and drones.
Ryanair said: “If any location system such as GPS is not functioning then the crew will switch to alternative systems.” Easyjet has procedures in place to mitigate GPS issues. TUI does not fly into the Baltic Sea and said its seven affected planes were likely to have positioned flights without passengers. BA and Jet2 declined to comment.
Glenn Bradley of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority insisted that flying remains one of the safest forms of travel. He said: “There are several safety protocols in place to protect the navigation systems of commercial aircraft. GPS jamming does not directly affect the aircraft’s navigation, and although it is a known problem, it does not mean that the aircraft was deliberately jammed.
While operators have mitigation measures in place to ensure continued safe operations, we work closely with other aviation regulators, airlines and aircraft manufacturers to limit and mitigate any risks posed by jamming and continuously monitor incidents around the world .”
