Estonia wants to discuss GPS disruptions with NATO and the EU
Published: Tuesday, Apr 30th 2024, 13:31
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Estonia wants to join the other Baltic and Nordic states in addressing Russia's interference with GPS satellite navigation in the Baltic Sea region. "We will discuss the problem with NATO allies and EU partners," wrote Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday evening following talks with his counterparts from Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Sweden.
Estonia is accusing neighboring Russia of being responsible for the GPS signal interference that has been occurring over the Baltic EU and NATO country for some time. Tshanka told Estonian radio that this was a "completely deliberate act" by which Russia was damaging the safety of air traffic and violating international regulations. Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur expressed similar sentiments.
The GPS signal is used by airplanes to determine their own position and for navigation. At the end of last week, two Finnair planes had to be diverted after GPS interference prevented them from landing in Estonia's second largest city, Tartu. It is one of the few airports in the region where a GPS connection is required. The Finnish airline therefore announced that it would initially suspend its flights from Helsinki to Tartu.
Following the incidents, the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulation Authority (TTJA) sent its experts to Tartu to investigate the GPS interference. A TTJA spokesperson told Estonian Radio on Tuesday that no signal interference had been detected on the ground and that it began at an altitude of around one and a half kilometers in the airspace. This was a "side effect". According to the TTJA, Russia is trying to protect itself from Ukrainian drone attacks by deliberately jamming the GPS signal.
Swiss affected almost daily
In war zones, civilian aircraft are regularly disrupted by false GPS signals. The Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) received over 2100 reports of GPS jamming in 2023. The number of incidents has quadrupled since 2019.
The airline Swiss registers so-called GPS spoofing almost daily on its routes to Asia, Southeast Asia and when flying over the Middle East, as Swiss long-haul fleet manager Dominik Jäggi recently told Swiss Radio and Television (SRF). Spoofing is particularly common over war zones such as Ukraine and the Middle East.
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