The world has become a much more dangerous place, lately. On the seas, on land – and certainly in the air.
Recent reports tell of malicious activity around the planet where aircraft have their GPS are spoofed or jammed.
And now the problem is starting to impact even the untouchable state leaders.
It has now been reported that Russia has jammed the satellite signal on an aircraft used by defense minister Grant Shapps.
Shapps was returning from Poland to Britain, where he was working hard at their proxy war against the Russians.
Reuters reported:
“According to a government source and journalists, the GPS signal was interfered with for about 30 minutes while the plane flew close to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
Mobile phones could no longer connect to the internet and the aircraft was forced to use alternative methods to determine its location, they said.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson confirmed the incident. They made sure to add that added it was ‘not unusual’.
“‘While travelling back from Poland yesterday, the plane carrying the Defense Secretary and his delegation temporarily experienced GPS jamming when they flew close to Kaliningrad’, the spokesperson said.
‘It didn’t threaten the safety of the aircraft and it is not unusual for aircraft to experience GPS jamming near Kaliningrad, which is of course Russian territory’.”
Defense sources insisted there was no danger to Shapps, but they called it a ‘wildly irresponsible’ act of electronic warfare.
The Guardian reported:
“Aircraft taking off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus are regularly jammed by Russian equipment, thought to be in Syria, though it is believed to be rare for an aircraft carrying a high-profile figure to be affected.
[…] According to the Times, a defense source said: ‘While the RAF are well prepared to deal with this, it still puts an unnecessary risk on civilian aircraft and could potentially endanger people’s lives. There is no excuse for this and it’s wildly irresponsible on Russia’s part’.”