RAF Falcon Carrying UK Defence Chief Jammed for Three Hours in Baltic, Underscoring European GNSS Risk

A Royal Air Force Dassault Falcon 900LX transporting UK Defence Secretary John Healey lost GPS reception for the entire three-hour flight returning from Estonia on 21 May, in an incident UK defence sources have attributed to Russian interference and which has sharpened concerns over the resilience of European airspace.

The aircraft, an Envoy IV CC.1 operated by Centreline AV on behalf of 32 (The Royal) Squadron at RAF Northolt, was transiting Baltic airspace after Healey visited British personnel deployed under NATO's enhanced forward presence. Pilots reverted to alternative navigation systems for the duration, while passengers lost smartphone and laptop connectivity, The Times reported. The Ministry of Defence has not formally attributed the jamming.

The episode lands during the European Union Aviation Safety Agency's flagship Airspace World conference in Lisbon, running 26 to 28 May, where GNSS resilience has been pushed up the agenda. EASA identifies the Baltic Sea and the Kaliningrad exclave as one of four European hotspots for sustained interference, alongside eastern Finland, the Black Sea basin and the eastern Mediterranean.

The disruption fits a broader pattern. A Falcon 900LX carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suffered GPS interference on approach to Plovdiv in August 2025, and a Spanish A330 MRTT carrying Defence Minister Margarita Robles was disrupted near Kaliningrad the following month. Latvia logged 820 interference cases in 2024.

For commercial carriers operating Baltic and eastern European routings, the persistence of state-level jamming is now a structural cost. ICAO formally condemned Russia and North Korea over GNSS interference in October 2025. Industry pressure for hardened cockpit defences and government-backed mitigation funding is expected to intensify in Lisbon this week.