A bloc spokesperson had accused Moscow of “blatant interference” and of subjecting the aircraft to electronic jamming
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 has refuted allegations made by several media outlets and EU officials that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s jet was subjected to GPS signal jamming.
The aircraft that carried the EU Commission chief to Bulgaria on Sunday showed good GPS signal quality along its entire route, the monitoring service wrote on X on Monday. The flight arrived only nine minutes later than scheduled, the service said, noting that some media reports erroneously claimed that “the aircraft was in a holding pattern for 1 hour.”
“The aircraft’s transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing,” it added.
The alleged GPS issues were first reported by the Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources who claimed the pilots experienced signal blackouts so severe that they had to use “paper maps” for landing. The sources also suggested Russia was to blame for the alleged incident. Reached for comment by the FT, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the reported allegations were untrue.
The claims were made official on Monday. Both the EU and Bulgarian authorities pointed the finger at Moscow.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” EU Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta told a press conference in Brussels.
The Bulgarian government also appeared to corroborate the claims the pilots had to rely on alternate navigation tools while landing at Plovdiv International Airport.
“During the flight carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to Plovdiv, the satellite signal transmitting information to the plane’s GPS navigation system was neutralized,” the government said in a statement. “To ensure the flight’s safety, air control services immediately offered an alternative landing method using terrestrial navigation tools,” it added.
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