Finnair suspends flights to Estonia because of Russian GPS jamming

Finnair will suspend its daily flights to Tartu, Estonia, after Russian GPS jamming forced two airliners to turn back from the eastern Estonian city’s airport.

Flights will be suspended from April 29 to May 31, Finnair said, so that an alternative approach solution that does not require a GPS signal can be installed at Tartu Airport.

Russian GPS jamming in the Baltic has caused interference to thousands of civilian airliners over the past two years.

“We apologise for the inconvenience the suspension causes to our customers. Flight safety is always our top priority, and as the approach to Tartu currently requires a GPS signal, we cannot fly there in the event of GPS interference,” said Jari Paajanen, Finnair’s director of operations.

Last week, two Finnair flights had to divert back to Helsinki after GPS interference prevented them safely approaching Tartu.

Pilots ‘well aware of the issue’

“The same thing happened as the day before. Somewhere halfway along its route, the plane turned back, around 15 minutes before landing,” a passenger who was aboard one of the diverted flights told Estonian news outlet ERR last week.

“The pilot said that approaching Tartu at night requires an accurate GPS signal, and there was not one because of interference from the eastern neighbours,” the passenger continued.

“The systems on Finnair’s aircraft detect GPS interference, our pilots are well aware of the issue, and the aircraft have other navigation systems that can be used when the GPS system is unserviceable,” Mr Paajanen added.

“Most airports use alternative approach methods, but some airports, such as Tartu, only use methods that require a GPS signal to support them.”

Aviation charts show that although Tartu has an Instrument Landing System (ILS) beacon installed on its single runway, the airport’s published approach paths all depend on a GPS signal being available.

Airliners must follow these approach paths to guarantee passengers’ safety when descending to land.

Finnair passengers who have booked to fly to Tartu over the next month will receive more information from the airline in due course, it said.

GPS jamming by Russia has been an increasingly large problem thanks to the amount of disruption caused to both military and civilian aircraft.

Earlier this year the GPS on Defence Secretary Grant Shapps’s RAF aircraft was jammed by Russia as the jet flew over the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies on the shores of the Baltic.

Reports this month indicated that thousands of British airliners had been affected by Russian GPS jamming around the same area.

GPS jamming causes airliners’ navigation systems to stop working correctly, forcing pilots to fall back to older, more labour-intensive, ways of flying.

Experts believe, based on reports of jamming from airliners flying near Kaliningrad, that a major Russian GPS jammer is located near the port city.

Agressive rhetoric from Russia

Finnair’s flight cancellations come after increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Russia towards the Baltic countries.

Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, was placed on a Russian wanted list in February after her country demolished Soviet-era war memorials following the invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

The Baltic politicians were accused of “destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers”, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.

Latvia, which neighbours Estonia and also shares a 175-mile land border with Russia, this week urged its citizens to convert basements into air-raid shelters amid fears of an invasion or military attack.

Vilnis Kirsis, the mayor of the capital Riga, said: “We call on everyone during the big clean-up, but also afterwards, to ensure that your cellars and your basements can be used as shelters in case of emergencies.”

The ambassadors of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania all warned in March that the invasion of Ukraine could “pivot quickly” into an all-out assault on the Baltic states.

Writing in The Telegraph, they said: “Our warnings about the latent and growing threat from the East were too easily dismissed in some allied capitals.”

British soldiers are currently stationed in Estonia as part of a Nato-led security force aimed at deterring Russian aggression.