GPS system of Von der Leyen’s plane was jammed, EU to boost satellite defenses

Last Sunday, the GPS system of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s airplane was jammed while it was heading to Bulgaria.

“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” EU spokesperson Arianna Podestà told Reuters and other news outlets on Monday.

She didn’t provide further details, but she added that the incident would reinforce the EU’s “unshakable commitment to ramp up defense capabilities and support for Ukraine” against Russia's three-and-a-half-year-old invasion.

According to Associated Press (AP), Bulgaria issued a statement saying that “the satellite signal used for the aircraft’s GPS navigation was disrupted. As the aircraft approached Plovdiv Airport, the GPS signal was lost.”

To prevent recurrence in the future, the EU will deploy additional satellites in orbit to strengthen resilience against GPS interferences and improve Europe’s capabilities to improve detection, Andrius Kubilius, Commissioner of Defense and Space, told Reuters.

Russia is denying any involvement and claims that it had nothing to do with jamming the GPS system of Von der Leyen’s airplane. According to Russian news agency TASS, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated to The Financial Times that this information “is incorrect.”

Von der Leyen is currently on a four day tour of the EU nations bordering Russia and its ally Belarus.

Airline pilots have recently been reporting an increase in interference and GPS spoofing, which is the deliberate jamming of GPS signals with false location data. Whereas this used to happen only a handful of times, in 2024, there were 150 reports, primarily in the Middle East.

Aviation authorities say that these are often false signals transmitted by warring parties to confuse enemy drones and fighter jets. However, such practices can create dangerous situations for civil aviation, as flights can unknowingly deviate from their intended course.