Since August 2023, Suspicions point towards Russia as GPS jamming has increased impacting air traffic procedures and safety.
On April 25 2024, Finnair flight AY1045 to Tartu in Estonia, was forced to return to Helsinki after the ATR-72 (registration OH-ATP) failed to land.
The next day, Friday, April 26 2024, another ATR-72 (registration OH-ATG) suffered the same issue. The pilots were unable to locate the airport due to GPS interference.
Finnair announced on Monday that it will suspend daily flights between Helsinki and Tartu
Finnair announced on Monday that it will suspend daily flights between Helsinki and Tartu, Estonia from April 29 until May 31, citing concerns about GPS interference in the region.
More than 2,300 Ryanair flights have reported incidents of GPS interference since last August, according to a report, as well as almost 1,400 at Wizz Air, 82 at British Airways and four from easyJet.
The Baltic Sea region is an area where Western military aircraft regularly meet Russian fighter jets and bombers.
The UK government confirmed in March that an RAF plane carrying the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, had its GPS signal jammed while flying near the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, while heading back to the UK from Poland.
The International Air Transport Association and the EU Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) held a summit in January to discuss GPS jamming and “spoofing”, or sending bogus signals, with Easa reporting a sharp rise in the number of attacks.
