Sofia [Bulgaria], September 5 : Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov has dismissed speculation that Russia interfered with the GPS signal of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, saying there was "no evidence" of "prolonged interference or jamming" near Plovdiv airport during her landing.
According to a Euro News report, Zhelyazkov told parliament on Thursday that von der Leyen's aircraft had not encountered sustained jamming. He later clarified that while "ground instruments" had not detected any disruptions, the possibility of "onboard devices" registering interference could not be ruled out.
The debate comes after the European Commission suggested earlier this week that Bulgarian authorities believed the disruption to von der Leyen's flight from Warsaw to Plovdiv on Sunday was "due to blatant interference from Russia."
However, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Grozdan Karadjov contradicted this version, telling local broadcaster bTV that Sofia had never submitted such an assessment to Brussels.
He said aviation officials only passed on a transcript of a pilot-control tower exchange mentioning "minor issues" with GPS, but "it did not mention Russian interference."
Euro News cited analysts who noted that GPS spoofing the use of false satellite signals could have explained the disruption even if no ground-based jamming was detected.
"If the signal level is good and the pilot is going around in circles, this is a very big indicator that it was a spoofing incident," Mahmoud Elsahoury, a telecommunications engineering expert at the University of Vaasa in Finland, told the outlet.
At the same time, Flightradar24 said its analysis of flight data showed "the aircraft's transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing."
Ian Petchenik, the platform's communications director, told Euro News, "There's also a secondary value called NACP, and that value was also within very high ranges, leading us to not see any jamming of the ADS-B signal."
He added, "For whatever reason, that (GPS) system wasn't functioning the way it was supposed to. The pilots let air traffic controllers know that. Air traffic controllers offered an instrument landing system arrival, and they landed just fine."
Initial claims that the aircraft circled above Plovdiv airport for an hour have also been challenged.
Euro News reported that open-source data shows the total flight lasted one hour and 57 minutes, just nine minutes longer than the scheduled duration, and that the delay was largely due to the plane's late departure from Warsaw.
Bulgarian authorities further rejected reports that von der Leyen's crew relied on "paper maps" to land, clarifying that an Instrument Landing System (ILS) was used.
While the specific cause of the GPS disruption remains unclear, Euro News noted that Moscow has intensified electronic warfare tactics since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with GPS jamming increasingly reported in regions bordering Russia.
"We are very well aware that unfortunately this incident is not specific to the President, meaning that it occurs on a very regular basis to many aircrafts flying in particular next to our eastern border," a European Commission spokesperson said, calling for "coordinated action from the European Union" to address the threat.
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