From the ground, northeastern Norway may appear to be a picturesque fjord region, dotted with charming red houses and frequented by snowmobile tours during the winter season. However, for pilots navigating above, this area has transformed into a hotspot for GPS jamming.
The jamming in Finnmark is so pervasive that last month, Norwegian officials determined they would cease tracking the instances of these disruptions, resigning to the fact that such interference has become an accepted reality.
Nicolai Gerrard, a senior engineer at NKOM, Norway’s communication authority, indicated that his agency no longer maintains a record of the jamming occurrences. “It has regrettably turned into an unwelcome norm that should not exist. Consequently, the authority overseeing the airports is not looking for continual reports on something that is occurring perpetually,” he stated.
Meanwhile, pilots continue to face these challenges, typically when they are flying at altitudes exceeding 6,000 feet. “We deal with this almost daily,” noted Odd Thomassen, a captain and senior safety advisor at Widerøe, a Norwegian airline. He mentioned that the jamming episodes usually persist for about six to eight minutes at a time.
A map depicting GPS jamming incidents across Europe on 17 October 2024.
When an aircraft experiences GPS jamming, alerts appear on cockpit displays, and the GPS system responsible for warning pilots of potential terrain collisions ceases to function. According to Thomassen, pilots can still navigate without GPS if they maintain communication with nearby ground stations, but this leaves them with an unsettling feeling of flying without modern technology’s assistance. “It’s like traveling back 30 years in time,” he remarks.
Since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, instances of jamming have escalated significantly along Europe’s eastern borders. Authorities in Baltic nations have attributed this increase to Russia overloading GPS receivers with harmless signals, rendering them inoperable. In one notable event in April, a Finnair flight attempting to land in Tartu, Estonia, had to abort its approach just 15 minutes prior to landing due to an inability to receive a reliable GPS signal.
Over the last ten years, GPS technology has gained such a reputation for reliability that many smaller, remote airports have chosen to depend entirely on it instead of investing in more costly ground-based systems, observes Andy Spencer, a pilot and international flight operations specialist at OpsGroup, which supports pilots and other aviation professionals.
“In Norway, there are likely many airports that rely solely on GPS approaches,” he explains, referencing the stage of the flight where aircraft descend toward the runway. “If there are complications with GPS signals, these airports may become inaccessible.”
In Finland, even automated tractors have faced disruptions. In May, the Finnish transport agency indicated that the issue had worsened since Ukraine began launching drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructures, suggesting that the jamming might be a byproduct of Russia’s new drone defense systems. During the same period, the agency revised its guidelines, mandating airlines to report only GPS interference with “exceptional effects.”
NKOM has also connected the jamming in northeastern Norway to actions from Russia. “In Finnmark, the interference is attributed to Russian jamming across several GNSS bands [which facilitate communication between satellites and ground stations], not just GPS, stemming from an area within the Russian border,” Gerrard informs WIRED. He emphasizes that the impact extends beyond pilots; throughout Norway, there have been incidents of fishing vessels unable to perform specific tasks and excavators on construction sites unable to dig with precision. The Russian embassy in Oslo did not respond to WIRED’s inquiry for comments.
NKOM’s choice to cease tracking jamming in Finnmark sets a troubling example, argues Melanie Garson, an expert in international conflict resolution at University College London. “By choosing not to respond, how can a deterrent effect be established?” she questions, emphasizing that it remains uncertain if the government intends to address the jamming issue or relinquish responsibility to the affected industries.
NKOM aims to “eliminate” GPS jamming originating within Norway, according to spokesperson Gerrard. This agency is one of several government departments that organizes the yearly Jammerfest, hosted on the Norwegian island of Andøya. This event allows for experimentation with countermeasures against jamming. Since 2022, industry and government representatives have congregated in the Arctic Circle to assess how their systems cope with jamming and the more critical issue of GPS spoofing, where fake signals mislead a plane or device regarding its actual location.
However, Widerøe pilots share a concern that this matter may seem distant to the American companies producing much of the equipment used in their aircraft. They suspect that the American Navstar satellite system is under attack, as other devices like iPads, which can decipher signals from various satellite constellations, continue to function during jamming episodes.
“The providers of the navigation computers are primarily American,” states Rolf Fossgård, deputy VP of flight operations at Widerøe. He expresses concern that if American businesses remain unaffected, they may lack the incentive to enhance their systems to withstand jamming. “Many European or Middle Eastern operators require this type of equipment,” he adds.
The future of the situation in the skies over Finnmark remains uncertain. Since 2022, most interference has impacted aircraft flying above 6,000 feet, indicating that the jamming device is likely located on the ground. Meanwhile, the more critical phase of a flight, at lower altitudes, remains safeguarded by the Earth’s curvature.
In April, Thomassen recounted experiencing his first instance of signal jamming while attempting to land. As he flew toward Båtsfjord, located at Norway’s northern edge, his aircraft faced jamming issues during its approach to the runway. “We managed to land safely by maintaining visual contact with the airport,” he explains. He notes that his airline, Widerøe, has yet to determine the cause of the jamming at such low altitudes.
Fortunately, the landscape around the airport is quite flat, he mentions. “Norway is known for its mountainous terrain, so if this jamming occurred in other regions of the country, it could have had a much greater operational impact.”