TURBULENCE

‘Extremely Dangerous’ Russian Jamming May Have Hit European Flights: Report

Thousands of civilian airline flights are suspected of being affected.

Thousands of commercial flights are suspected to have been hit by Russian jamming, according to a report. Britain’s The Sun tabloid reported that aircraft have been forced to avoid “phantom obstacles” that aren’t really there as a result of spurious data that drown out genuine signals needed for GPS navigation. One unnamed industry source told the newspaper the issue is “extremely dangerous.” The data for the suspected Russian attacks was compiled from public flight logs by researchers at GPSJAM.org, with the organization saying that it could not conclusively prove jamming had taken place. “Areas where a significant percentage of aircraft report low navigation accuracy seem to correlate well with areas of known and suspected jamming,” GPSJAM told The Sun. The outlet reported that the Baltic, Black Sea, and the eastern Mediterranean are “jamming hotspots,” with a later report suggesting that Russian electronic warfare systems known as Tobol could be to blame for the interference to planes’ signals.