site.btaSuspected Jamming of European Commission's Chief Flight to Bulgaria Followed Up in Sofia, Brussels

A suspected jamming of the GPS signal of the navigation system of an aircraft carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during its approach to Plovdiv Airport (South Central Bulgaria) on August 31 was followed up in both Sofia and Brussels on Thursday.

Prime Minister Zhelyazkov: Interference Came from Electronic Warfare Systems in Crimea

At a news briefing at the Council of Ministers on Thursday, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov attributed the interference to Russian operations in the radio-frequency spectrum, and more specifically to satellite jamming from systems based in Crimea, conducted as one of the methods Russia uses in its electronic warfare against Ukraine. He said such disruptions were affecting countries from Finland to Libya and added to the difficulties faced by von der Leyen's visit, along with protests by pro-Russian parties and other efforts intended to undermine the unity of the European coalition of the willing supporting Ukraine.

The Prime Minister described the parliamentary hearing held earlier as "part of a broader hybrid information attack by opposition parties against the Government". He argued that facts and circumstances surrounding von der Leyen's flight had been distorted to damage public trust in national institutions.

"We are disappointed that at this critical moment our geopolitical partners, CC-DB, have chosen to attack Bulgarian institutions instead of supporting the government's efforts to adequately manage this incident," Zhelyazkov commented.

He was referring to a call by the Democratic Bulgaria Co-chair Atanas Atanassov called for Denyo Denev's dismissal as acting SANS Chairperson over the reported GPS incident. CC-DB initiated Thursday's parliamentary hearing on the matter.

Answering questions from Atanas Atanassov MP of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) regarding the incident, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said during that hearing that the onboard systems of von der Leyens' aircraft were fully operational, the flight was continuously monitored by the Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority (ATSA), and the plane remained visible to airspace surveillance systems. "The flight was delayed approximately 5 minutes, which is within the permissible timeframe," the PM reported.

He said further that the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC), the State Agency for National Security (SANS) and ATSA did not detect any GPS interference or spoofing affecting air navigation and landing systems in the area of Plovdiv Airport, Zhelyazkov told the legislature.

Throughout the entire duration of the flight, the aircraft’s transponder was transmitting consistently with good GPS signal quality. There were no indications of prolonged interference or jamming, the Prime Minister stressed. He also noted that partial or complete GPS outages are common in Europe, including Bulgaria, particularly in densely populated areas.

"Aeronautical events involving GPS signal interference are not classified as incidents requiring mandatory investigation under current regulations," Zhelyazkov explained, adding that such occurrences are not treated as "incidents", as all necessary systems and procedures are in place to ensure flight safety.

On Tuesday, he said there was no reason to investigate the incident as a GPS signal jamming is not considered a hybrid or cyber threat. 

Deputy PM and Transport Minister Karadjov: No Record of GPS Signal Loss

Deputy Prime Minister and Transport and Communications Minister Grozdan Karadjov told bTV on Thursday that there was no record of jamming of the GPS signal to von der Leyen's aircraft.

He explained that, based on radio-direction findings and records held by the Bulgarian Air Force and the CRC, "there is not a single fact supporting a claim that the GPS signal was lost."

Karadjov was adamant that no one in the Bulgarian Government has misled anyone at the European Commission and denied there had been communications between Sofia and Brussels on the matter.

"The only thing the Bulgarian Civil Aviation Administration forwarded to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is the existence of a report of the tower–pilot conversation stating the pilot had a GPS issue," he said.

President Rumen Radev: Invented Scandal

Talking to journalists in Pleven (North Central Bulgaria) on Thursday, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev dismissed the case of the alleged GPS jamming of von der Leyen's flight in Bulgaria as "an invented scandal" that was brought to a close by the Transport Minister and the Prime Minister at Parliament earlier in the day.

"No official information has been received about disruptions of any kind from hundreds of aircraft overflying Bulgaria, nor from the parallel functioning of the Air Force helicopters at the Krumovo Air Base," added Radev, who is a jet fighter pilot and former commander of the Bulgarian Air Force. "In aviation, there are multiple back-up of the navigation system, so that if one system is disrupted, you proceed with other systems. I don't see any problem," the head of State said further.

European Commission: No Targeted Actions Involved

"The European Commission (EC) has never claimed that the reported GPS signal disruption during the landing of EC President Ursula von der Leyen's aircraft at Plovdiv Airport involved targeted actions," said EC Deputy Chief Spokesperson Arianna Podesta at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. She added that the Commission had also never stated how long the plane was circling over Plovdiv before it landed.

"We are very well aware that unfortunately this incident is not specific to the [EC] President, meaning that it occurs on a very regular basis to many aircraft, in particular those flying near our eastern border. The situation is complicated. It is a fact that since the start of the war, Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, these episodes of disturbances of GNSS GPS signals have been increasing. This is why coordinated action from the European Union is needed. The Commission is supporting Member States in developing an EU-wide action plan with clear roles and responsibilities across sectors and levels, because we are very well aware that this issue occurs regularly not only with our aircraft, but also with our ships at times. Of course, this is a difficult situation to handle," Podesta said.

According to the spokesperson, it's for the Bulgarian authorities to decide how to take course of this action. "We don’t have these investigative powers, I believe," she said. 

The EC will deliver a statement next Wednesday to the European Parliament on the threats to aviation and maritime navigation posed by GPS signal jamming, according to the agenda of next week’s plenary session in Strasbourg.

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The news of the jamming incident was first broken by The Financial Times on Monday morning, in a report saying that "a suspected Russian interference attack targeting Ursula von der Leyen disabled GPS navigation services at a Bulgarian airport and forced the European Commission president's plane to land using paper maps." 

A little later in the day, Podesta went on record saying: "We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this [GPS jamming] was due to blatant interference by Russia."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told The Financial Times that its information was "incorrect".

In Vladivostok on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described allegations about Russia being behind jamming von der Leyen's airplane as "fake and paranoia"