Russia Accused of Jamming GPS on EU Head’s Plane, Flightradar24 Disputes Claim

Many large mainstream media outlets reported that the GPS on European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen’s plane was jammed by Russia, forcing it to land with “analogue maps” in Bulgaria on Sunday, but the flight tracking site Flightradar24 has disputed the claim.

Original Report: Financial Times (Center bias) first reported the news. A European Commission spokesperson said, “There was GPS jamming but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received info from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.” FT reported that the Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority confirmed the incident. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the publication, “Your information is incorrect.”

Flightradar24’s Account: Flightradar24, a popular flight tracking website, shared the data it had gathered from the flight on X. It wrote, “We are seeing media reports of GPS interference affecting the plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen to Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Some reports claim that the aircraft was in a holding pattern for 1 hour. This is what we can deduce from our data. The flight was scheduled to take 1 hour and 48 minutes. It took 1 hour and 57 minutes. The aircraft's transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing.”

For Context: von der Leyen is currently on a “frontline states” tour visiting eastern member states to underscore the European Union’s commitment to defense. Flightradar24 is a Swedish company.

How The Media Covered It: FT’s initial report was widely covered by sources across the spectrum, but Flightradar24’s statement was not widely covered. The only two mainstream outlets AllSides found to cover it were The European Conservative (Lean Right) and Russian state-funded RT (Lean Right).

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