The plane of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was forced to make an emergency landing in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, due to the failure of GPS navigation services at the Bulgarian airport. This is reported by the Financial Times.
Thus, it is reported that the electronic navigation aids of a plane heading to Plovdiv on Sunday afternoon were not working during the approach to the city airport. According to three officials informed of the incident, this was regarded as russian interference. The publication notes that this is a possible russian interference attack directed against Ursula von der Leyen, which disabled GPS navigation services at the Bulgarian airport.
"The GPS went out in the entire airport area. The pilot, who had been circling the airport for about an hour, decided to land the plane manually using analog maps. These were definitely interferences," the publication quotes an informed source as saying.
The Bulgarian air traffic control also confirmed the incident in a statement to the Financial Times.
"Since February 2022, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of GPS jamming cases and, more recently, spoofing cases. These interferences disrupt the accurate reception of GPS signals, leading to various operational problems for aircraft and ground systems," the statement said.
The European Commission later confirmed the incident.
"The plane landed safely in Bulgaria due to GPS signal jamming. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that, in their opinion, this happened due to gross interference by russia. We, of course, know and are used to threats and intimidation, which are a normal component of russia's hostile behavior," a European Commission representative said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also commented on the situation for the publication and stated that "your information is incorrect."
Recall that the number of GPS jamming in the sky over Latvia has more than doubled. They are associated with russia.
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