European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was forced to make an abrupt landing in Bulgaria on Monday after her plane lost GPS signal in mid-air. The aircraft was approaching Plovdiv airport when the navigation services was abruptly disabled — forcing the plane to touch down using paper maps. Bulgarian authorities suspect that the incident was caused by ” blatant Russian interference”.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming. We have received information from the Bulgarian authority that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia…This incident actually underlines the urgency of the mission that the president is carrying out in the front-line member states,” said spokesperson Arianna Podesta.
Von der Leyen — a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the ongoing war in Ukraine — is on a four-day tour of the EU nations bordering Moscow and its ally Belarus.
‘Whole airport area GPS went dark’
A statement from the Bulgarian government also confirmed that the aircraft carrying Leyen had lost GPS signal while it was approaching the southern city of Plovdiv. Air traffic controllers had subsequently switched to ground-based navigation systems to ensure a safe landing. A Financial Times report added that the pilots had circled the airport for an hour before eventually deciding to try and land the plane manually using analogue maps.
“The whole airport area GPS went dark. It was undeniable interference,” one of the officials told FT.
‘Blatant interference by Russia’
The incident is the latest in a series involving suspected Russian electronic interference with GPS satellite navigation. Countries bordering Russia — including Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — have warned of increased electronic activity interfering with flights, ships and drones for several months. The Associated Press has reportedly plotted almost 80 incidents on a map tracking a campaign of disruption across Europe blamed on Russia — which Western officials have described as staggeringly “reckless”. It is believed that the frequency has increased in recent months with interference extending further from Russian borders.
The West has repeatedly accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — ranging from vandalism to arson and attempted assassination.The interference from Russia includes jamming and spoofing. Jamming means a strong radio signal overwhelms communications, whereas spoofing misleads a receiver into thinking it is in a different location or in a past or future time period.
The Electronic Communications Office in Latvia claimed in August that it had identified at least three hot spots for jamming along borders with Russia. In April 2024, a Finnish airline temporarily suspended flights to the Estonian city of Tartu following jamming, while in March that year, a plane carrying the British defence secretary had its satellite signal jammed as it flew near Russian territory.
(With inputs from agencies)