In Norway’s remote northeast corner, a different landscape awaits, where the rugged terrain gives way to picturesque villages, their traditional red-roofed homes standing out against the monochrome backdrop of winter’s grip, while snowmobiles carve through the pristine wilderness, awaiting the arrival of spring’s thaw. Despite its tranquil appearance from the ground, the airspace above has been transformed into a perilous zone for pilots navigating with GPS, vulnerable to disruptions caused by intentional jamming signals.
In Finland’s Arctic region of Finnmark, a sense of permanence has been established, leading Norwegian authorities to conclude last month that they will no longer log when and where it occurs—instead accepting these disturbance notifications as the norm.
According to Nicolai Gerrard, a senior engineer at NKOM, the national communications authority, his team no longer records or accounts for instances of jamming. It’s become a persistent and unacceptable norm that doesn’t belong. Given the circumstances, the Norwegian airport authority is unlikely to prioritize frequent updates on routine developments.
At cruising altitudes of 6,000 feet or higher, pilots must adapt. According to Odd Thomassen, a seasoned captain and senior security advisor for Norway’s Widerøe airline, “We confront this situation virtually every day.” According to him, episodes of jamming often persist for roughly six to eight consecutive minutes.
In the event that an aircraft encounters a jamming signal, critical alerts illuminate cockpit computer displays, while the GPS system responsible for providing real-time terrain information ceases to function effectively, potentially signaling a collision hazard due to proximity to mountains. According to Thomassen, pilots are still able to navigate without GPS as long as they communicate with nearby ground stations. Despite being equipped with the latest technology, however, they’re left with an unsettling feeling that they’re still learning to fly without the guidance of modern expertise. “You’ll essentially be transported back in time to when you were 30,” he explains.
Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine escalated into a full-blown conflict, interference with GPS signals has surged globally, prompting authorities in Baltic countries to explicitly attribute the disruptions to Russian actions, effectively rendering GPS receivers inoperable due to benign alerts deliberately overwhelming their systems. A Finnair flight en route to landing in Tartu, Estonia, was forced to make an unscheduled 15-minute delay due to issues receiving a reliable GPS signal, making the safe arrival its top priority.
In the past decade, GPS technology has become so dependable that many smaller, far-flung airports have come to rely on it exclusively, abandoning more expensive ground-based equipment in favor of its precision, notes Andy Spencer, a pilot and global flight operations specialist at OpsGroup, a professional organization for pilots and industry professionals.
