US EditionGPS Jamming By Russia? Here's What Happened To Von Der Leyen's Plane
Bulgarian authorities found no GPS jamming evidence during von der Leyen's flight; investigations confirm safe landing with minor signal disruptions attributed to regional electronic warfare.
- On August 31, 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's plane lost its GPS signal on approach to Plovdiv and landed safely at Plovdiv Airport.
- Regional officials pointed to Russia's Crimea-based radio-electronic operations disrupting Europe's spectrum, with the Swedish Transport Agency reporting GNSS incidents soared from 55 in 2023 to 733 this year; Andreas Holmgren said, `This poses a serious threat to civil aviation.`
- Flight-Tracking experts including Flightradar24 countered initial media claims by three officials that the jet circled Plovdiv for an hour and used paper maps, showing good GPS signal and a 1 hour 57 minute trip, just nine minutes longer than scheduled.
- Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov ordered aviation authorities to investigate and instructed the Civil Aviation Administration to check the flight's instruments, noting ground monitors found no jamming though onboard devices might have recorded disturbances with about a five-minute delay.
- Despite contrary data, the European Commission maintained its account, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the claims `100% made-up fake`, and Bulgarian government and opposition actors described the episode as a hybrid information attack.
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47 Articles
The GPS of Ursula from the Leyens plane fell over Bulgaria. Such interferences are not individual cases.
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For an hour, the plane of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen circled unorientedly over Bulgaria, while the pilots hung out with paper cards - Putin had paralyzed the complete GPS navigation.
When Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's private jet was forced to land on Sunday after an alleged case of GPS jamming in Bulgaria, Russia was identified as the prime suspect. Bulgaria announced Tuesday that it would not launch an investigation, and it is now even unclear whether there was any actual interference. The European Commission's claims are contradicted by flight data and independent pilots.
Flight Data Contradicts Von Der Leyen's Gps Malfunction Claims, Bulgaria Also Retracts Its Statement
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's private jet was forced to land on Sunday with "paper maps" after an alleged case of GPS jamming in...
A Commission spokesman has merely pointed out that they only repeated the words of the Bulgarian air navigation authority about GPS interference and that the important thing about the incident is that the aircraft landed without further mishaps.
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