British RAF planes have encountered GPS jamming more than 140 times in Eastern Europe

Russia silenced the GPS-signals of dozens of UK Air Force flights in Eastern Europe in 2024. in the first four months, wrote The Telegraph. According to the analysis of the magazine, one in four flights of the British Air Force faced the problem of disruptions. In the first four months, British aircraft made 504 flights in Eastern Europe, during which time 142 aircraft were affected by GPS system failures, and in 60 cases there were cases of signal jamming for the second time. one in Syria, the other in Kaliningrad. Tom Whittington, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, believes that the jamming may be deliberate, but the technology itself is causing fears. But, on the other hand, silencing itself is very irresponsible. There will be moments when countries will really have to use it for honorable reasons, for example, for self-defense," Whittington noted. At the end of April, The Sun newspaper based on GPSJAM.org data, with the help of experts, calculated that from August last year to 2024 at the end of March, the number of jamming or GPS-signal spoofing cases increased by 50 per week and reached more than 350 per week. In particular, crews flying to and from Great Britain reported 2,309 times, Wizz Air crews - 1,368, British Airways - 82 times, etc. that these are deliberate actions, GPSJAM reported. "Regions in which a significant proportion of aircraft report low accuracy of navigation systems usually coincide with regions where jamming is known or suspected to occur." Deterioration in navigation accuracy can be explained by loss of signal in the American global GPS system or in Europe's Galileo, using a false signal to show the aircraft that it is not where it really is. A source in the aviation industry told The Sun. "The Russians are sending false information. It's very dangerous." According to Jack Watling, a military expert at the Royal Joint Institute for Defense Studies, the Russian military "has long used GPS jamming as a hostile act across NATO borders." Grant Scheps and a group of journalists lost signal in March while returning from Poland and flying not far from Kaliningrad. Communication with satellites was lost for about half an hour, and the pilots had to use alternative navigation systems. Although the British government said that this story did not threaten the safety of the plane, The Guardian's source in the Ministry of Defense suspected the Russian military of jamming the signal. , called it "horribly irresponsible".