A plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Laene was diverted this week due to GPS interference, according to the Commission, and was forced to circle over a Bulgarian airport before the pilot landed with the help of classic maps.
Did the plane deliberately target? This question “is better to address the Russians,” said Commission spokesman Arianna Pontesta.
Von der Lien was one of the most prominent persons influenced by interference with GPS navigation signals in Baltic and Eastern Europe.
Since Russia’s complete invasion of Ukraine in 2022, GPS interference has affected large areas of Europe, Ukraine and Russia, causing serious problems in both GPS guidance systems and its use for civil aviation and travel.
How is GPS blocked
GPS satellites operate by constantly emitting position and time data from their orbit.
Receivers in satellite car navigation systems, aircraft flight systems and even high -precision guided weapons decode these signals from many satellites to calculate their position in the area, the Financial Times explains.
Because these signals are weak, as they are shipped from a medium orbit around the Earth, they are easy to block. A transmitter near the receiver can “block” them by simply emitting a stronger signal at the same frequency to cover the GPS signal.
In war, interference with these signals can captivate aircraft and drones and make the weapons lose their goals.
“Precision weapons are seriously affected, as ‘smart’ bombs become essentially useless due to spoofing or gps jamming. Small drones are constantly facing spoofing and jamming, “said Todd Humphreys, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas in Austin.
“There are many possible navigation solutions,” he said, “but nothing is as cheap, worldwide and integrated as GPS/GNSS.”
GNSS is the general term for global satellite navigation systems, while GPS is the name for the American system. The Russian Gnss is called Glonass, while China uses Beidou.
Financial markets, electricity networks and telecommunications are all based on GPS to operate, and holidays or errors are spreading throughout their systems.
Extensive GPS interference is already disturbing the smooth functioning of everything, from daily commutes to national security near war zones, and may someday evolve into a global problem.
What happened to von der Laienne plane?
The pilots reported that the GPS of a private aircraft carrying Ursula von der Layen presented interference while landing at Plovdiv Airport in Bulgaria on August 31st.
Russia has denied any involvement, although a “thermal map” of GPS interference affecting the aircraft instruments, from the gpsjam.org website, shows Bulgaria and much of the Black Sea region as a hotspot interference.
However, something unusual was observed: the transmitter of von der Laienne plane appears to have been able to locate the position of the plane and transmit it throughout the incident.
The position of the aircraft was accurately and in real time on flight tracking sites, because the so-called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system did not appear to be affected.
“It’s weird and I don’t have a good explanation for that,” said Tom Withington, an e -war expert at the Royal United Services Institute.
However, something really seems to have been wrong on the aircraft. Radio -communications recordings published online by an open source researcher show pilots discussing with air traffic controllers for “a problem with the GPS scanner”, which forced them to follow an “unusual” approach process.
“If the pilots mixed the course due to interference, it is almost certain that both GPS receivers used in the flight management system were intervened. The pilots do not divert a course for no serious reason, “Humphreys said.
Experts pointed out that the GPS receiver used to handle the aircraft and the one used to transmit its position through ads-B is separate. Humphreys noted that it was possible that the receiver used to transmit the position would prove to be more resistant to interference.
Why are GPS signals blocked in the area?
Russia and Ukraine are using a variety of electronic warfare weapons to eliminate the other side’s precision ammunition, according to a senior British military official who described Ukraine as “a sea of ​​electronic interference”.
These interference have surpassed Ukraine’s border and have influenced much of Eastern Europe and the Baltic region. Aircraft pilots are now consulted “thermal maps” of possible GPS interference before taking off.
Military analysts accuse Russia of harassing NATO Air Force from the Kaliningrad enclave. In 2024 two Finnair flights were forced to turn over and return to Finland due to GPS interference.
At the same time, political aircraft in the Black Sea area, such as the von der Laienne plane, have been affected by an increase in GPS holidays due to apparent interference, which may come from the Russian -held Crimea.
Russian systems vary, from huge tobol stable antennas that can block signals in large regions of Europe, to Zhitel or Krasukha electronic warfare systems installed on trucks and protecting infantry units.
Erik Kannike, head of the Estonian technology company Sensusq, said Russia’s Tobol system could target an individual satellite connection as that on the von der Laienne plane without causing wider disorders.
Similar trends have been observed in other war zones. Up to 50,000 spoofing attacks on airports in the Middle East in 202, which caused the aircraft incorrect indications of their position, probably came from Ein Shemer Airport in northern Israel, according to a study signed by Humphreys.
Are interference effective?
Many weapons supplied by the US in Ukraine and based on GPS such as Himars rockets and precision ammalibur ammunition have long ceased to operate due to Russian interference.
“Basically there is no longer GPS,” said Andriy Zvirko, head of the Ukrainian Communications and Navigation Society Sine Engineering. “On the battlefield, GPS as a reliable navigation tool has virtually disappeared.”
One of the problems that are specifically for Ukraine, according to Withington, is that the NATO encrypted GPS frequency, resistant to interference, remains unavailable to prevent possible leaks in Russia.
Citizens, including airlines, do not have access to it, and even encrypted signals can be blocked by advanced systems.
However, interference consumes a lot of energy and it is difficult to maintain, and both Russia and Ukraine still manage to launch rockets and drones on the other side of the other side despite interference.
The electronic war has forced both sides to move innovations, using adaptive antennas and jumping on different radio frequencies. More newer weapons systems can use at least two GPS guidance systems.
Among them are the sophisticated descendants of the gyroscopes used in the first aircraft for inertial navigation. Another technology is “visual guidance”, which compares three -dimensional satellite maps with the ground.
“Despite years of research, no one has found a GPS substitute that is cheap, globally available and providing an exact timing, but without being vulnerable to interference and spoofing like GPS/GNSS,” Humphreys said.
The most promising, he said, are the low -track satellite constellations, such as the Starlink of Hylon Musk, Amazon’s Kuiper and Xona, a satellite location service.
Can jamming target a specific aircraft or ship?
Other formal flights that have suffered GPS holidays while flying near Russia include an aircraft carrying former British Defense Minister Grand Saps in 2024 and two flights carrying German Armed Forces leader Karsten Broyer. Broyer said he did not know if the interference was targeting his own aircraft or if they were part of a wider campaign.
Experts point out that GPS blockage is not capable of distinguishing an individual vehicle or aircraft. “Spot Jamming” is directed against specific frequencies in an area, while “Barrage Jamming” is aiming for a wider frequency range to deprive the opponent of control and communications.
Another tactic is the spoofing or “meaconing” of GPS, which manipulates fake or real signals to mislead the receiver about its true position.
Unlike GPS jamming, which simply blocks the signals, spoofing emits fake signals that look legal but carry false data. “These can lead to very dangerous consequences,” said a senior NATO military official.
Spoofing of this kind may have been behind the Liberian Front Eagle tanker collision in June’s straits, as well as in other incidents in which GPS signals were confused.
Withington commented: “You must always have a map in your car.”
Source :Skai
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