September 2025: In late August, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had her plane knocked off course due to GNSS interference. Since the escalation of the Russian-Ukranian conflict in 2022, radio interference has begun to affect much of continental Europe.
The RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys said, “if the pilots [on von der Leyen’s flight] redirected due to jamming, it’s a near certainty that both of the GPS receivers used in the flight management system were jammed. Pilots don’t divert for no reason.” Dr. Humphreys adds that, “despite years of research, no one has found a replacement for GPS that is cheap, globally accessible, and also provides accurate timing, yet not vulnerable to jamming and spoofing like GPS/GNSS is.”
“Precision guidance munitions are severely affected,” continued Dr. Humphreys. “Smart bombs are rendered dumb by GPS spoofing and jamming, [and] small drones face spoofing and jamming routinely.” Many US-supplied weapons rely on GPS, such as the Himars missiles and Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells, and have largely been rendered inoperable due to GNSS jamming.
For more, read the full article here.
