In the first five months of 2026, 510 cases of GPS interference were registered in the airspace of Latvia. Although this is slightly less than the previous year, the problem remains relevant and is directly related to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
A large number of interferences in the operation of the global positioning system GPS continues to be recorded in the airspace of Latvia.
According to the State Joint Stock Company "Latvijas gaisa satiksme" (LGS), 510 such cases were registered from January to May this year. This is a 4.5% decrease compared to the same period last year.
In May alone, specialists recorded 131 cases of satellite navigation disruptions. For comparison, there were 135 such incidents in May 2025. Despite the slight decrease in figures, the scale of the problem remains significantly higher than a few years ago.
Statistics show a rapid increase in the number of such incidents in recent years. If in 2022 there were only 26 cases of GPS interference recorded in the airspace of Latvia, in 2023 their number rose to 342, in 2024 to 820, and in 2025 it reached 1276.
Thus, the current figure remains one of the highest ever recorded.
LGS previously noted that the mass emergence of interferences coincided with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"Interferences began to be recorded simultaneously with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are most likely related to this," the company explained earlier.
For passengers on flights, such reports may sound alarming; however, aviation authorities emphasize that there is no threat to flight safety.
The Civil Aviation Agency (CAA) reminds that modern aircraft use several independent navigation systems.
It is important to know: even if GPS is experiencing disruptions, pilots and air traffic controllers have backup navigation means, so such incidents do not affect flight safety.
The agency notes that interferences do complicate certain processes in civil aviation, but do not pose a risk to either transit aircraft or flights arriving in or departing from Latvia.
Each case of such violations is registered and sent for analysis to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
Experts continue to closely monitor the situation, as the Baltic Sea region remains one of the areas in Europe where satellite navigation interferences are recorded particularly frequently.
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