GPS jamming of Wideroe and SAS aircraft over Finnmark during Zapad-2017 (September 2017)
What happened
From 7 September 2017 pilots flying for Wideroe and SAS in East Finnmark reported losing GPS in flight. The losses ran for about a week between Kirkenes and Berlevag, with disturbance reported westward as far as Alta; GPS worked on the ground and dropped out above roughly 2,000 to 3,000 feet, behaviour consistent with a ground-based emitter in line of sight at altitude. Avinor suspended GPS approach procedures for the duration. On 15 September the Norwegian Communications Authority measured from a helicopter and found the source direction lay to the east, toward the Russian border; its director John-Eivind Velure said it was hard to say what the source was but that the emission might be a noise signal designed to interfere. Wideroe's communications director Silje Brandvoll described the interference as stable over time and unlike anything the airline had experienced. The interference coincided with Russian and Belarusian preparations for the Zapad-2017 exercise, which formally began on 14 September and which analysts expected to include electronic warfare. Armed forces officials were initially non-committal, Lieutenant Colonel Ivar Moen saying there was no indication the Russians had jammed against Norway; by early October Norway's military intelligence service had confirmed to NRK that Russian exercise activity across the border had jammed the GPS of SAS and Wideroe flights.
Two corrections travel with this record. First, the SPARTA reference the commissioning brief assigned to it is about a different event: the nrkbeta article cited at EX-0014.03 covers the June 2017 Black Sea spoofing and Kremlin spoofing, not Finnmark, so the genuine bibliography starting set here is zero techniques and no spoofing technique is mapped. Second, the record's own attribution moved: Nkom and the armed forces were non-committal in September, and Norwegian military intelligence confirmed Russian responsibility to NRK in early October. A third point is recorded rather than resolved: the 2024 Norway record in this same batch carries a source stating that the first Finnmark GPS disruptions were reported in 2018, which contradicts this record.
Attack vector
Ground-based GNSS-band emission from east of the Norwegian border, coinciding with Russian exercise activity, reaching aircraft receivers above roughly 2,000 to 3,000 feet across East Finnmark and westward to Alta.
Operational impact
About a week of in-flight GPS loss for Wideroe and SAS services in East Finnmark. Avinor suspended GPS approach procedures at the affected airports for the duration. No source read for this record quantifies delays, diversions or flight counts for the 2017 episode.
Affected segments
user, link
Disclosed
2017-09-15
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
Aircraft GPS receivers stopped acquiring in flight across a defined region for about a week, with the loss altitude-dependent (working on the ground, dropping out above 2,000 to 3,000 feet), and the national regulator's own helicopter measurement found the emission's direction and characterised it as possibly a noise signal designed to interfere. That is EX-0016.03: noise raised in the GNSS band so satellite navigation signals are not acquired or tracked, leaving the position and time solution unavailable. The technique's consequence clause is written receiver-agnostically, which is why this edge is direct while the spoofing edges elsewhere in this batch are derived.
Avinor suspended GPS approach procedures at the affected airports for the duration of the interference, which is temporary impairment of the use of a system and is reported as fact rather than inferred. Confidence is moderate rather than high because no source read for this record quantifies the operational cost of the 2017 episode: no flight counts, no delays and no diversions. The diverted air ambulance that appears in the CSIS material belongs to the 2018 Trident Juncture episode, not to this one, and is deliberately not carried here.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
The technique the brief's reference count points at. Rejected because that reference is about the Black Sea spoofing, not this event, and because nothing in this record is spoofing: receivers lost signal, they were not fed false positions. Mapping it would import a technique from an unrelated incident's bibliography.
Same call as in the Finland and Norway 2024 records: defensible on its own description, but
EX-0016.03is the specific PNT case.GPS approach procedures were suspended and the aircraft flew on alternative navigation. Impairment, not elimination of use.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
A source marked contradicting disputes the account above rather than supporting it. It is listed because a reader assessing this record should see it.
Tier 2: Named foundation relaying NRK's contemporaneous reporting, carrying on-the-record quotations from three named parties: the Nkom director, Wideroe's communications director and an armed forces officer. Not Tier 1 because it is neither the broadcaster's original nor a government record.
Tier 2: Named research project at a named institution, compiling dated incidents with authorities, airlines and official statements attached. Not peer-reviewed and not a government record.
Tier 2: Named journalist reporting the national regulator's own day-counts and quoting three named officials on the record. Carried by the Canadian public broadcaster's Arctic desk. Not itself a government record, so not Tier 1.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.