The GPS incident of the Von Der Leyen Ursula plane was not hybrid or cyber threat. The Prime Minister of Bulgaria: “There are no reason to investigate”
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Jeliazkov said on Tuesday that the GPS incident on the President of the European Commission, Ursula von Der Leyen, does not require investigations. He explained that the signal is not a hybrid or cyber threat.
The Bulgarian Prime Minister announces that the incident with Von Der Leyen is not worth investigating / photo source: AFP
There is no reason to investigate the incident in which the aircraft of the European Commission was involved, Ursula von Der Leyen, as the bruise of a GPS signal is not considered a hybrid or cyber threat, said Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Jeliazkov on Tuesday, Burgas, according to Agerpres.
His statement follows a Monday report of the Government Information Service about an incident produced on Sunday, when the GPS system on board the European Commission President lost the Satellite signal to its navigation system while approaching Plovdiv Airport.
In order to guarantee the safety of the flight, the Bulgarian authority of the air traffic services immediately proposed an alternative method of landing using the ground -based navigation aid.
Bulgarian authorities suspected a flagrant interference of the Russian Federation
In a press conference held on Monday, the deputy spokesman of the Commission, Arianna Podesta, said that the Bulgarian authorities suspect that the GPS incident during the trip of President Ursula von Der Leyen to Bulgaria was caused by the flagrant interference of Russia.
Jeliazkov said that, since the beginning of the Ukraine war in 2022, the modern war has increasingly involved the so-called electronic war, which includes intentional disturbances of the radio frequency spectrum. According to him, such disturbances have been observed in recent years in a wide geographical area, which includes Helsinki, the Black Sea region, Erevan, Tbilisi, Cyprus, Syria and Tripoli.
“All these are examples of interference that affect the spectrum of radio frequencies used by GPS signals transmitted from satellites that orbit at altitudes of about 20 kilometers above the Earth.”said Rosen Jeliazkov.
The Prime Minister of Bulgaria: “The incident is not different from other similar events related to the current conflict in Ukraine and to electronic war techniques”
The prime minister pointed out that the disturbance did not specifically target a certain aircraft and that the incident was identified by the flight crew. “Such events happen daily and the aircraft took off and landed long before there were GPS systems”said Jeliazkov.
He explained that there are international protocols established for such situations, which are applied in all countries monitored by the European Aviation Safety Agency. These protocols stipulate that, in the case of a GPS disturbance, traditional navigation methods are used.
As the prime minister emphasized, the control of air traffic in Bulgaria followed all the necessary procedures and the incident is not different from other similar events related to the current conflict in Ukraine and to electronic war techniques.
“Unfortunately, this is one of the collateral effects, though not a minor, of these conflicts.”concluded Prime Minister Jeliazkov.
The aircraft in which the EU leader was landed in Bulgaria using paper maps
An alleged Russian cyber attack that targeted Ursula von der Leyen disabled GPS navigation services at a Bulgarian airport and forced the European Commission's president's plane to land using paper maps.
A plane transporting Von Der Leyen to Plovdiv on Sunday afternoon was deprived of the electronic means of navigation while approaching the city airport, in what three informed officials said he was treated as a Russian interference operation.
