Airlines Report Russian GPS Jamming In Four Regions

The Russian military's jamming of airline satellite navigation is likely collateral damage from the war, a French aviation official reportedly said.

Kimberly Johnson

Friday, April 01, 2022 at 03:43 PM ET

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While the jamming can be a distraction for pilots, airlines have procedures in place for when GPS signals are lost. [File photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

Russia's military is jamming airline satellite navigation in regions including the Black Sea, eastern Finland, Kaliningrad, and the Eastern Mediterranean, using equipment primarily intended to defend troops from GPS-guided munitions, with civil aviation being "collateral damage."
These widespread GPS disruptions pose significant safety risks to aircraft, causing issues such as rerouting, difficulty with landings, loss of navigation capabilities, and various system degradations.
Aviation authorities have warned pilots about intensified jamming and spoofing due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the unpredictability of outages.
The situation is deemed a "wake-up call" for all European countries to develop comprehensive contingency plans for the potential loss of satellite navigation systems in aviation.

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According to a new report citing a French aviation official, Russia’s military is jamming airline satellite navigation near the Black Sea, eastern Finland and Kaliningrad, a small Russian province along the Baltic Sea located between Lithuania and Poland.

The satellite navigation disruption is being caused by Russian trucks with jamming equipment meant to defend Russian troops from GPS-guided munitions, Benoit Roturier, satellite navigation head of France’s civil aviation authority DGAC, told Bloomberg.