Peter Ball
BBC World Service
A Royal Air Force (RAF) plane, in which British Defense Secretary John Healy recently traveled, was flying over Estonia, near the Russian border, when something unusual happened.
According to flight data analyzed by the BBC World Service, the plane’s transponder suddenly began to show that the aircraft was deep into Russian territory, about 300 kilometers from where it had been just seconds before.
It allegedly flew at a speed of only 11 kilometers per hour over a lake near St. Petersburg.
However, none of that information was correct.
The plane’s navigation system was confused by the so-called GPS spoofing – a type of cyber attack during which false Global Navigation Satellite System (GPS) signals are broadcast to trick a navigation device into displaying a false location or time.
This happens when a certain area is flooded with radio signals that mimic the signals sent by GPS satellites.
Since satellite signals are relatively weak when they reach Earth, a transmitter on the ground can emit stronger false signals, which navigation systems, including those on airplanes, can “pick up”.
Spoofing signals are most often used by militaries to reduce the accuracy of enemy weapons that rely on GPS, such as long-range missiles and small drones.
Many militaries have special units that install transmitters at permanent bases or move them using vehicles.
However, passenger flights are increasingly under attack from this form of electronic warfare.
RAF pilots were forced to guide the aircraft using an older and less accurate navigation system that works in parallel with GPS.
The British Ministry of Defense announced that the safety of the flight was not compromised.
Actually, that plane was not the only one that was attacked by false signals in the area that day.
Data that is an aerospace consulting company SkAI Data Services provided to the BBC show that more than 100 passenger planes received incorrect location data due to GPS spoofing.
The same data indicate that spoofing and intentional jamming of GPS signals (jamming), another type of electronic jamming that suppresses satellite signals to prevent GPS from working, is increasingly prevalent in areas near war zones and in those where there is intense military activity, such as the Baltic region, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, India, and Pakistan, as well as the area around Myanmar.
For example, the number of flights reporting GPS spoofing has skyrocketed in the Persian Gulf since the beginning of the war between the United States of America (USA) and Israel against Iran February 28 of this year.
According to the company SkAI Data Servicesin March 5,381 flights reported false signals, while in February there were 99, and in January only 14.
The company’s data also show that the number of GPS spoofing cases in the Baltic region increased from 17,243 in 2024 to 59,447 in 2025.
It coincided with the increasing use of drone strikes in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Many other busy air routes across Europe, the Middle East and Asia have also been affected by spoofing and deliberate jamming of GPS signals, with an average of more than 800 flights per day worldwide affected this year.
Since the technology needed to carry out such attacks is readily available to most countries, experts fear that these occurrences will become more frequent.
British pilot Sam Rutherford also faced this problem when he flew from Saudi Arabia to Oman in a small plane with four seats last month.
As it approached the border between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the plane’s navigation system and autopilot stopped working.
At first he thought the problem was with the plane, but other airlines in the same area were reporting identical disturbances.
It turned out that his plane was simultaneously under attack from both intentional jamming and false GPS signals.
Rutherford, who flew helicopters in the British Army for eight years, used the plane’s magnetic compass and contacted air traffic control so he could reach his destination safely.
He landed safely, but says: “If the weather conditions were bad, if I had less fuel and if I had flown at night, the situation would have been completely different.”
One of the dangers of false GPS signals is that if the plane is mistaken to be in another location, pilots may have to turn off or ignore the warnings of anti-collision systems, said Tanya Harter, president of the European Pilots Association, which represents about 40,000 pilots.
That system warns pilots when it judges there is a risk of hitting the ground or obstacles like mountains.
Harter says there are many reports of pilots receiving false warnings, such as to pitch up, even when flying at an altitude of about 11,000 meters.
Radars that help planes avoid bad weather can also stop working, Harter added.
Although many airlines keep pilots well informed about these problems, Harter warns that the combination of all these distractions “undermines the safety net on the plane.”
Describing his experience with GPS spoofing, pilot Artur Rodionov says that the biggest deviation he saw between the actual location and the one shown on the screen was when the plane “jumped from Lithuania to the North Sea”.
“It’s more than 1,600 kilometers,” says Rodionov, who flies smaller passenger planes for an Estonian charter airline. Diamond Sky Aviation.
In response to these “regular” occurrences, Rodionov says his company has developed protocols for dealing with false GPS signals, which require pilots to turn off the GPS system while flying through areas known for electronic interference.
In this way, the pilot can monitor whether the aircraft’s signals are being tampered with, thereby preventing confusion with the aircraft’s other navigation systems.
Rodionov warns that GPS spoofing can complicate the situation especially for inexperienced pilots or at times when the plane has additional problems, such as mechanical failure or equipment failure.
“It’s definitely an added problem,” he says.
States are not prohibited from jamming GPS signals.
The International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations (UN) agency that regulates broadcasting signals, allows such activities for security or defense purposes, although it has expressed “serious concern” that the widespread use of these methods threatens the safety of aircraft.
European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation EUROCONTROL says that aircraft have “built-in safeguards to maintain security” during GPS spoofing, and that aircraft navigation technology and ground-based air traffic control can direct the aircraft.
The organization adds that aircraft manufacturers are working closely with avionics suppliers to find technical solutions to the problem of false GPS signals.
However, there are unofficial indications that aviation organizations, including EUROCONTROLmuch more worried than they publicly admit.
In the presentation of that organization, which is marked “not intended for the general public”, and which the BBC had access to, warns that GPS spoofing “fundamentally undermines today’s safety principles in the cockpit”.
Experts believe that a solution to this problem needs to be found more urgently than is publicly acknowledged.
“Airlines are desperate for upgrades,” says Todd Humphreys, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas in the US.
“Aviation is still using GPS technology that is more than 20 years old,” he says.
The industry needs “GPS receivers resistant to intentional jamming and emulation of false satellite signals,” he points out.
“I think we will have to develop new technologies that will be much more resilient.”
Some of the possible solutions include upgrading the software in airplanes to filter out interference, using directional antennas to make the equipment ignore false signals from the ground, and completely new navigation systems that would work alongside GPS.
However, making changes to equipment critical to flight safety can take a long time.
Humphreys points out that the intentional jamming and broadcasting of false satellite signals does not only affect commercial air traffic.
They can even disrupt the operation of navigation applications on mobile phones.
“It affects marine traffic as well as people driving on the roads,” he says.
“In any future conflict, we can expect GPS to be among the first targets.”
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