GNSS jamming and spoofing affecting European aviation (2022 onward)
What happened
Since February 2022 the European Union Aviation Safety Agency has recorded a sustained increase in jamming and spoofing of Global Navigation Satellite Systems affecting civil aviation, and has revised its safety information bulletin on the subject four times, most recently in July 2026. EASA's assessment is that the events have grown in severity of impact and in overall intensity and sophistication, and that they particularly affect airspace surrounding conflict or geopolitical risk zones: the south and eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Middle East, the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. EASA distinguishes jamming, intentional radio frequency interference that prevents receivers locking onto satellite signals and renders GNSS ineffective or degraded in the affected area, from spoofing, the broadcast of counterfeit satellite signals to deceive receivers, which it treats as the higher safety risk of the two. EUROCONTROL had earlier quantified the operational cost, recording a 2,000 percent increase in GNSS radio frequency interference incidents in 2018 and about 38.5 percent of European en-route traffic transiting areas intermittently but regularly affected. The activity is ongoing. EASA names no state, and Council document 9188/1/25 REV 1 of 4 June 2025, a note carrying information from eight member states to the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council, states that the Baltic Sea Region interference originates "mainly from the sources in Russia and Belarus" and is "a systematic, deliberate action by Russia and Belarus". That attribution is those member states' and is not made in this record's own voice.
Ongoing at the time of writing, with no closing date. The two cited primaries differ on attribution and the record carries both. EASA locates the activity geographically rather than naming a state. Council document 9188/1/25 REV 1 of 4 June 2025, a note carrying information from Lithuania, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Spain to the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council, states that the interference observed in the airspace of the Baltic Sea Region since 2022 originates "mainly from the sources in Russia and Belarus", and that the cases "are not random incidents but a systematic, deliberate action by Russia and Belarus". That attribution is those eight member states', recorded here as theirs and not asserted in this record's own voice. This record carried "No attribution is recorded" until 23 August 2026, on the ground that the Council document did not attribute; it does, in its second paragraph. As with the maritime GNSS record, the mapping turns on whether SPARTA's PNT techniques, written with the spacecraft as the affected party, may carry an event whose victims are aircraft receivers.
Attack vector
Terrestrial and maritime transmission of interfering energy in GNSS bands (jamming) and of counterfeit GNSS signals (spoofing), affecting airborne receivers over and around conflict and geopolitical risk zones.
Operational impact
Degradation of communication, navigation and surveillance for civil aviation across several European and adjacent flight information regions, with increased pilot and controller workload and dependence on backup navigation. EASA maintains the current list of affected flight information regions on its GNSS outages page; it is not transcribed here because it moves.
Affected segments
user, link
Disclosed
2022-03-17
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.
EASA records spoofing, the broadcast of counterfeit satellite signals to deceive receivers, as a distinct category alongside jamming over the same period and in the same airspace, and treats it as the higher safety risk because it does not announce itself. The transmitting behaviour matches the technique; the deceived party is an aircraft receiver rather than the spacecraft navigation solution the technique names, so the edge is derived and the record carries a hold on that question.
EASA's bulletin defines the jamming it records as intentional radio frequency interference with GNSS signals that prevents receivers locking onto satellite signals and renders GNSS ineffective or degraded for users in the jammed area. EX-0016.03 describes raising the noise floor in GNSS bands so that navigation signals are not acquired or tracked, with degraded or unavailable position, velocity and time solutions as the consequence. The regulator's description and the technique's description are the same statement.
EASA's bulletin is titled for the communication, navigation and surveillance degradation these events cause and records that the severity of that impact has increased. EUROCONTROL quantifies the operational cost, with about 38.5 percent of European en-route traffic transiting areas intermittently but regularly affected and an estimated 5 percent of traffic in affected regions potentially requiring special assistance. That is temporary impairment of the use of a system, which is IMP-0002's definition.
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.
Parent of
EX-0016.03, which is mapped. Mapping both adds nothing.The sourced language throughout is degradation, interference and outage of the GNSS service to receivers, not loss of the aircraft's function. Aircraft continue to fly on alternative navigation. Mapping denial would overstate what EASA reports.
Nothing is destroyed or permanently disabled.
Same reason as in the maritime record: a GNSS-band jammer is not the TT&C ground stack this technique describes.
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.
- EASA Safety Information Bulletin 2022-02R4: Global Navigation Satellite System Outage and Alterations Leading to Communication / Navigation / Surveillance DegradationRegulator statement
Tier 1: Current safety bulletin issued by the European Union's aviation safety regulator, in force at the time of retrieval.
Tier 1: Council of the European Union working document.
Tier 1: The regulator's own operational page, named in SIB 2022-02R4 as the authoritative location of the affected flight information region list.
- EUROCONTROL Think Paper #9: Radio Frequency Interference to satellite navigation - An active threat for aviation?Standards bodysupporting
Tier 1: Analysis published by the intergovernmental organisation responsible for European air traffic management, working from its own network data.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.