Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Russia is up to something: Finland, Norway warn pilots to be ready to fly without GPS

Disruptions to Global Positioning System signals have been reported in northern Norway and Finland this month, overlapping with the final days of NATO’s exercise Trident Juncture, a massive military exercise that has drawn Russia’s ire.

A press officer for Widerøe, a Norway-based airline operating in the Nordics, told The Barents Observer at the beginning of November that pilots reported the loss of GPS while flying into airports in the northern Norwegian region of Finnmark, near the Russian border.

Norway’s aviation authority, Avinor, issued a notice to airmen of irregular navigation signals in airspace over eastern Finnmark between October 30 and November 7, according to The Observer.

“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be, but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military activities outside Norway’s [borders],” the director said.

Aviation authorities in Finland issued similar notices in early November, warning air traffic of disruptions to GPS signals over the northern region of Lapland, which borders Finnmark.

A notice to airmen from Air Navigation Services Finland warned of such issues between midday November 6 and midnight on November 7.

ANS Finland’s operational director told Finnish news outlet Yle that the information had come from the Finnish Defence Forces but did not identify the source of the interference. “For safety reasons, we issued it for an expansive enough area so that pilots could be prepared not to rely solely on a GPS,” the operational director said.

GPS disruptions related to military activity have been reported in the Nordics before.

Norwegian intelligence services said in October 2017 that electronic disturbances – including jamming of GPS signals of flights in the northern part of the country – in September were suspected of coming from Russia.

Reports of similar outages were reported around the same time in western Latvia, a Baltic state that borders Russia.

Norwegian and Latvian officials both said the jamming may not have been directed at their countries specifically. Latvia’s foreign minister said Sweden’s Öland Island, across the Baltic Sea from Latvia, may have been the target.

Similar disruptions were detected in Norway near the Russian border earlier this year. Norwegian authorities said the interference was related to Russian military activity in the area.

Russia has invested heavily in electronic-warfare capabilities and is believed to have equipment that can affect GPS over a broad area. Northern Norway and Finland are adjacent to Russia’s Kola Peninsula, which is home to Russia’s Northern Fleet – its submarine-based nuclear forces – and other Russian military installations.

“If your offensive military capabilities rely on GPS, guess what the adversary will try to do?” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said in response to the latest reports of GPS interference in Finland.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/finland-norway-tell-pilots-to-fly-without-gps-and-some-blame-russia-2018-11/amp

Reply 1

the bear

the Russkies also have the capability to cut the internet cables under the Atlantic....

Reply 2

Tempest II

GPS is frightening easy to jam, even employees who want to hide their company car movements from employers can do it cheaply but totally illegally. Car thieves also use it to stop security trackers. While these individuals/organisations only disrupt GPS over a small area (15 Square ft perhaps), Russia is able to do it over massive areas.

Several nations are now moving back towards Earth based navigation systems as a back up - the UK is looking into eLoran for maritime purposes and perhaps for other uses too. The sooner we can have a reliable and established back up to GPS the better as any kind of conflict with Russia or the PRC will result in either jammed GPS or the GPS Satellites getting destroyed.