Finnish airports restore old navigation systems due to Russian GPS interference
Kyiv • UNN
Three airports in eastern Finland are installing radio navigation equipment due to alleged Russian interference with GPS. Finland believes that Russia is creating obstacles to protecting its strategic facilities from Ukrainian attacks.
Three airports in eastern Finland are re-installing radio navigation equipment to facilitate landing of planes during periods when authorities believe Russia is interfering with satellite navigation, Reuters reports, citing airport operators, UNN writes.
Details
Finland believes that Russia is interfering with signals used in navigation, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS), in Eastern Finland and the Baltic Sea region to protect its oil ports and other strategic facilities from Ukrainian air strikes or drones, the newspaper points out.
Russia denies interfering with communications and satellite networks.
Two Finnish airports operated by Finavia in the cities of Joensuu and Savonlinna, both about an hour's drive from the Russian border, introduced the converted ground equipment in September, while another airport in Lappeenranta plans to do the same as soon as possible, the operators said.
Distance measuring radio equipment, which was previously widely used in aviation, provides an "alternative approach method" for aircraft during GPS interference, said Henri Hansson, head of infrastructure and safety at Finavia.
"We have retained some of the system's previous infrastructure, even if it was not necessarily used in operation. Now we've been able to update it so that we can use it again," he told Reuters.
Hansson declined to comment on the cost of the updates.
Different levels of GPS failures are detected daily in the country's aviation, according to the Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom, with most reports coming from southern Finland.
Addendum
In April, Finnair suspended some flights to Tartu in eastern Estonia for a month for the same reason, but resumed them in June after the Estonian airport installed a new approach solution that does not require GPS signals.
Estonia also accused Russia of violating international airspace rules by interfering with GPS signals.
