Europe Putin the blame on Russia after GPS jamming disrupts president’s plane A plane carrying European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen to Bulgaria was forced to resort to manual navigation techniques after GPS jamming that authorities have pinned on Russia. The Financial Times first reported the jamming, and in the EC’s midday Monday press briefing Deputy Chief Spokesperson Arianna …
"A better question may be “Can a European military rely on GPS to guide drones or missiles right now?” The Register suspects the answer to that could be “Classified.”"
Rely on? No. Continue to use? Yes. Most drones and missiles use a combination of navigation technologies anyway; INS, terrain mapping and fibre-optic are all ways to get round GPS jamming, and have been in use for decades. The Tomahawk cruise missile (as an example) predates GPS and worked fine without it.
plane-makers and airlines equip commercial aircraft with other navigation tools. Pilots receive training in how to use them.
Are those old VHF Omnidirectional Radio ("VOR") transmitters still maintained? Do aircraft navigation charts still carry the relevant VOR information? And how practiced are pulots and co-pilots at "flying the needles"? That's relevant to aircraft safety/survival when flight crew is in the midst of dealing with other, additional, non-GNSS-jamming emergencies.
Finally, this old dog remembers when there were four flight crew in the cockpit of commercial airliners: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and navigator.
That's been halved to "save money", on the theory that modern computerised automations reduce the workload enough that only two flight crew are needed.
That theory works ... until it doesn't.
Finally, this old dog remembers when there were four flight crew in the cockpit of commercial airliners: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and navigator.
Simon: Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet your captain, Captain Oveur.
Clarence Oveur: Gentlemen, welcome aboard.
Simon: Captain, your navigator, Mr. Unger, and your first officer, Mr. Dunn.
Clarence Oveur: Unger.
Unger: Oveur.
Dunn: Oveur.
Clarence Oveur: Dunn. Gentlemen, let's get to work.
"this old dog remembers when there were four flight crew in the cockpit of commercial airliners: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and navigator"
..Automation removed the need for a flight engineer and a navigator. A bunch (redundancy) of computers is much better at monitoring a set of gauges and verifying that everything is within specs than a jet-lagged and lightly alcoholized* flight engineer or navigator.
Automation changes the workplace. This does not necessarily make things worse. Air safety continues to increase.
*: Q: What separates two alcoholics and 5 nymphomaniacs?
A: the door to the cockpit
.told to me by a very funny stewardesse
Reading air safety data can be hard, since a single large accident has a large influence on the data for a whole year.
Also, total accidents will increase with the amount of flying of safety is not improved.
Look into the raw data of your report, and grab the data for Rates per 100 million aircraft-miles: Fatalities and Seriously injured persons
plot this over time from 1990 to today (data from before 1990 is per decade.
What you can see is a clear downwards trend in both categories.
For more data, feel free to look at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Air_safety_statistics_in_the_EU
I do not see how I am wrong.
@LogicGate:
1. My error. I was doing this on my phone, couldn't get the graph to scroll, and assumed the Note, Rates are computed by dividing the number of Fatalities, Seriously injured persons, Total accidents, and Fatal accidents by the number of Aircraft-miles, Aircraft departures, or Flight hours. applied to what was shown on the graph.
2. I think the relevant statistic would be fatalities and serious injuries per passenger-mile.
My father was made redundant when Boeing introduced the two crew cockpit. I flew jump seat enough times to see the pilots bugger off and leave everything to the flight engineer. Aircon making it too cold for passengers; Number 3 engine cowling flapping loose (speedtape is your friend); the hot water machine in the galley is on the blink, and sort out fueling and c of g limits for takeoff, etc., etc. I always wondered why my dad kept a spare toolkit with a large mallet.
AI has nothing on a flight engineer with a large mallet (no hammer to upset the poor old plane).
I also remember when LORAN was a thing and watching RAF navigators having to read coordinates off the hangar wall before punching them into the TANS of their shiny fast jets.
Isn't technology a wonderful thing!
"Are those old VHF Omnidirectional Radio ("VOR") transmitters still maintained? " - Yes they are, as are the NDB stations, though VOR usage for navigation is sometimes not authorized except for the radials of public airways.
"Do aircraft navigation charts still carry the relevant VOR information?" - Yes they do, where relevant.
"And how practiced are pilots and co-pilots at 'flying the needles'?"
The FMS of an airliner, as opposed to more basic GA FMS systems, can use multiple sensors, including for ground-based navaids, so there's no need to fly manually or in tracking-mode only if the GNSS sensor fails (the former would be extremely stressfull for the flight crew on long enroute legs). Thus there's no major difference in FMS operation. What is really prone to create problems in GNSS-denied areas are waypoints and airways that are only defined by GNSS, of which there are many in Europe. Also, GNSS-based approach procedures will be unavailable which could cause headaches on e.g. runways where the only 3D approach procedure is, say, LPV - if the ceiling is below the weather minimums of that runway's VOR approaches, a different runway or a diversion will be required.
"Finally, this old dog remembers when there were four flight crew in the cockpit of commercial airliners: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and navigator."
Actually, in the *real* days of old there were 5 crew on the flight deck of large aircraft: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and radio operator. The radio operator became redundant when radio communications changed from morse to voice, as did the navigator when INS replaced astronomic and dead-reckoning navigation techniques on oceanic routes. As for the flight engineer, there is really no need for one on a modern aircraft with FADEC-controlled engines.
Neither Podestà nor Itkonen described the exact nature of this jamming incident, or how the presidential plane addressed it.
German news services did report the information. The pilots switched to manual navigation, using maps, when they realised their GPS signals were being blocked/spoofed, the flight took around 90 minutes longer as they did a double loop around the areas to line up for a manual landing.
The German news services also showed a map showing where jamming has been recorded in the last few weeks, a large part of the Easter flank, down through the Balkans to the Med showed strong blocking attempty, with weaker attempts up north towards the Nordic countries.
The jamming was just before final approach, so, no they didn't know beforehand.
There have been many instances of jamming over the last few weeks in different locations, but nothing on that day, until they were close to the destination. This has happened on other flights with the President as well, her plane has been targeted several times, probably because she is visiting several nations bordering on Russia at the moment.
> It would be interesting to know if GALILEO and/or GLONASS were affected too.
Don't know for sure, but I'd bet that if you build a professional GNSS jammer, you would cover the frequencies of all available constellations. Without that the jammer would be quite useless, isn't it.
Hmmm....yet this story might be bunk
Flightradar published this information on Xitter.
"* The flight was scheduled to take 1 hour and 48 minutes. It took 1 hour and 57 minutes.
* The aircraft's transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing. "
https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1962565122326700178
and
https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1962573785036464583
The 10 minutes delay is consistent with a jamming occurring during the landing phase. Note also that the plane had to make a second approach before landing. Compare with other planes landing in Plovdiv, none has the same circumvented trajectory.
Look at the gps jamming map by flightradar, where it occurs. It's quite interesting to guess who does that.
The problem is, the 10 minute flight delay does not tally with the official line from the EU.
"The whole airport area GPS went dark," said one of the officials. After circling the airport for an hour, the plane’s pilot took the decision to land the plane manually using analogue maps, they added. “It was undeniable interference.”
https://www.ft.com/content/3c330f87-71c4-4db9-8259-f5c132c1f0d3
It's got all the hallmarks of a sloppy anti-Russian propaganda campaign.
I don't know why you're getting down-voted.
No competent airline pilot would circle the airport for 90min, in daylight and in excellent weather conditions, reading paper maps. Besides, most of the airports have navigation aids that could have been used for visual flying rules and assist with landing the plane.
What smells like anti-Russian propaganda is the fact that relevant authorities did not take elementary precautions, in this instance collecting and preserving evidence starting with shutting off the VCR and FDR and remove them in order to be analyzed by competent authorities. You know, for such a serious charge we deserve better information than something said by one of the officials and related by FT. This is not how aviation incidents investigation is supposed to work.
In conclusion, to me it is propaganda and it is sloppy.
Remember, Ursula’s plane was fitted with the best Galileo terminal that EU money can buy.
This is the outcome of€25bn of EU taxpayers spent on Galileo (so far), which according to them was largely spent on special EU technology to make it more difficult to jam. Which was all nonsense of course, all silly Ursula did was take the US GPS spec from forty years ago, and wind it forward by twenty years. Now she wants to spend more money, to make it only five years behind US GPS. And of course, current GPS is exactly as vulnerable as it physics says it is, which is “quite vulnerable”. What a waste of money.
Nonsense. Making it more difficult to jam is not the purpose of Galileo. Quoting Wikipedia:
"One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European political and military authorities do not have to rely on the United States GPS or the Russian GLONASS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time."
Another purpose of Galileo is to have better coverage at higher latitudes. But the main reason for Galileo is to be independent of the 'Selective Availibility" of GPS.
Well, I was on the engineering team that implemented part of the Galileo infrastructure. And I was in the room, lobbied for the contracts, and personally signed some of those contracts, when my company “the largest aerospace company in Europe” persuaded the EU that it really needed an independent sovereign version of the US GPS system. And then we proceeded to lose that contract to OHB. I rather fancy that trumps your “I read this on Wikipedia”.
I assure you that having a higher anti jam capability than GPS, was a major part of why the EU believed they wanted this in the first place. And we echoed that back to them, precisely, because that’s what they wanted to hear.
As to “the main reason for Galileo is to be independent of the 'Selective Availibility" of GPS”. It has certainly been a selling point to those not technically involved, that Galileo is independent of GPS SA. Unfortunately, there are two separate technical reasons that if the USA *did* actually turn on SA again, it would similarly degrade Galileo accuracy exactly pro rata. The simplest to explain, is that Galileo is on the same frequency, and shares the US GPS *ground* atomic timing as its single-point-of-truth. If the USA turned on SA, we can assume that they would also stop sharing their UTC timing, so any Galileo secondary timing atomic clock gradually drifts off within the ground infrastructure. This event has actually occurred once, due to a component failure a couple years back, which incorrectly did not have a redundant backup, leading to a week-long Galileo outage. So it’s not theoretical. The mechanism to prevent that drift ultimately traces back to receiving the GPS signal identically on two continents. Selective Availability being turned on, would spanner Galileo timing accuracy, exactly as much as GPS accuracy.
I’m so sorry that you have been fed propaganda. But this is a technical forum, you should have had the wit to check your system understanding before blurting out the first wrong thing that came into your head.
> I assure you that having a higher anti jam capability than GPS, was a major part of why the EU believed they wanted this in the first place. And we echoed that back to them, precisely, because that’s what they wanted to hear.
Is not a good look for an engineer that you did that, knowing it was bollocks.
Unlike Galileo, the new eLoran system [1] was an excellent backup to GPS that was very difficult to jam, and a real string in our bow for resilient Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT). Though eLoran was only up for a few for months before its funding was pulled and the money diverted to Galileo.
> If the USA turned on SA,
The USA turning on SA became utterly pointless by then, because everybody had already deployed Differential GPS to counter it [2].
[1] Nothing to do with the old Loran-C .
[2] Known fixed points monitor the local GPS signal for errors and broadcast corrections.
This is the outcome of€25bn of EU taxpayers spent on Galileo (so far),
Cost estimation for Galileo is €10bn, not 25.
The initial cost for GPS is estimated at $12 billion, something very similar. The yearly cost for GPS is around $2bn. For Galileo it's between €0.8bn to €1bn
Galileo is expected to generate around €166 billion in revenue by 2029. It is a good investment.
Galileo has some impressive strengths over GPS, especially when it comes to precision, independence, and innovation. Here's how it stands out:
1. Superior Accuracy
Galileo offers meter-level accuracy for public users and centimeter-level accuracy for commercial services.
Its dual-frequency signals reduce errors caused by atmospheric interference, making it more precise than GPS in many scenarios
2. Civilian Control
Unlike GPS, which is operated by the U.S. military, Galileo is fully civilian-controlled by the European Union.
This ensures greater transparency and less risk of signal degradation during geopolitical tensions
3. Better Urban Performance
Galileo’s modern signal structure performs better in dense urban environments, where buildings can block or reflect signals.
This means faster and more reliable positioning in cities
4. Unique Emergency Services
Galileo includes a Search and Rescue (SAR) service that can detect distress signals and send confirmation back to the sender.
GPS doesn’t currently offer this return-link capability
5. Authentication Features
Galileo provides Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA)—a feature that helps users verify the authenticity of the signal.
This is crucial for security-sensitive applications like banking, autonomous vehicles, and infrastructure monitoring
6. Multi-Constellation Synergy
Most modern devices use both Galileo and GPS, along with GLONASS and BeiDou, for enhanced accuracy and reliability.
Galileo’s integration boosts overall performance, especially in challenging environments
In short, Galileo is like the precision-tuned European counterpart to GPS—designed with modern needs in mind and built for resilience, accuracy, and civilian trust
#1 “Galileo offers meter-level accuracy for public users and centimeter-level accuracy for commercial services. Its dual-frequency signals reduce errors caused by atmospheric interference, making it more precise than GPS in many scenarios”
GPS is dual-frequency too, but that’s not the point. The point is that more modern receivers have other methods for ionospheric correction. *Both* GPS and Galileo achieve 10cm accuracy absolute, because the smart bits are in the receivers (not the naive version you will read in any university textbook).
#2 Nationalist bullshit.
#3 “Galileo’s modern signal structure performs better in dense urban environments”
The Galileo signal structure “upgrades” are a load of university professor crap. In theory it makes a difference. In practice, precisely in dense urban environments, an advanced receiver blind-detects and de-convolves it all out anyway. This was originally discussed and designed thirty years ago, when getting even four or five RAKE fingers in a reasonable CPU power budget was ridiculously challenging, and the Galileo signal structure would definitely have been better. Today, we have x1000 processing power on the receiver, this really is a non-issue, the signal upgrades make zero difference. The only thing that really matters is the total satellite signal transmission power.
#4 Emergency Servicss. Cospas Sarsat provides this service already, as does Inmarsat GMDSS. And have you seen the actual spec on reliability and timeliness for Galileo beacon detection? By the time you wait for Galileo you’ll be dead.
#5 OSNMA. Sounds cool. Sounds blockchain-ish, Win Win Win.
Seriously, have you asked any banks if they want to use this? The EU asked them ten years ago, and they universally said Fuck Off, only less politely.
#6 Is True.
