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What we can learn from the “Russian GPS interference” story.

Kit Knightly

On Monday morning it was widely reported that a private jet ferrying Ursula Von Der Leyen to Plovdiv in Bulgaria was subject to “GPS interference”, and had to navigate using paper charts for the final part its journey.

This was quickly blamed on Russia, a supposed attempt to assassinate, or at least intimidate the EU chief, and the reactions kicked into high-gear almost instantly.

The Financial Times lead the pack, headlining [emphasis added]:

Ursula von der Leyen’s plane hit by suspected Russian GPS interference

ABC news went with [more emphasis added]:

EU head Ursula von der Leyen’s plane hit by suspected Russian GPS interference

The BBC mixed it up a little [even more emphasis added]:

EU chief von der Leyen’s plane hit by SUSPECTED Russian GPS jamming

Are you seeing a pattern?

Elsewhere, the AP claims to have got all the information you need, adding that it’s so completely definitely true that there isn’t even any point in investigating it:

Bulgaria will not investigate suspected Russian electronic interference with a top European official’s plane, officials said Monday — because this kind of GPS jamming is now so common.

Having established it definitely happened, Sky News turned to analysis:

Russia responds to GPS jamming accusations – but such instances are expected to escalate

Euro News is at full blown panic stations:

What can Europe do to better defend against GPS interference from Russia?

The good news is that NATO are going to save us, according to the Independent:

NATO says it is working to counter Russia’s GPS jamming after EU leader’s plane incident

The Conversation is asking the big question, hinting at the grander agenda behind the story:

Russia’s GPS interference: do I need to worry when flying?

Got that everyone? Flying is scary. Putin might kill you. Probably safer to just stay at home.

The counterpoint, appearing in comments sections all across social media, was that the alleged attack was likely a false flag, carried out by Ukraine or NATO.

However, somewhat lost in the tug-of-war assigning blame was this simple fact: There was no evidence any “GPS inteference” had ever happened.

The website FlightRadar24 monitors air traffic GPS and telemetry data for flights all over the world, and within a few minutes responded to this assertion with the following tweet:

According to their data, far from being an hour late (as some stories reported), the flight was delayed by only nine minutes, which is pretty standard in terms of air travel. And the data shows it maintained transponder signal throughout its journey.

In short, there’s nothing in the data to say the flight was anything but completely ordinary.

The media are clearly aware of this apparent contradiction, accounting for its “peculiarity” in their version of the narrative. In their follow up article, earlier today, the Financial Times notes:

unusually, the transponder onboard von der Leyen’s plane appears to have been able to establish the plane’s position and broadcast it throughout the incident.

The aircraft’s location was reported accurately and continuously on flight tracking websites because its so-called Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) system appeared to be unaffected.

Which is essentially an admission that the data makes it appear the “GPS interference” never actually happened.

In fact, we have no confirmation anything happened at all. It’s just a story, and people on both sides ran with the underlying assumption before it was properly established.

What can we learn from this story? Always. Question. Everything.

An old lesson that always bears repeating.

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Categories: latest, Russia