A Royal Air Force plane carrying British Defense Minister John Healey suffered signal jamming after flying along the Russian border, according to The Times.
The minister returned from a visit to British soldiers deployed in south-east Estonia. Several political and military advisers, a lieutenant general, two photographers and a Times journalist were also on board.
According to the British newspaper, the jamming disabled the aircraft’s GPS for the remainder of the return flight, which lasted about three hours. Pilots had to rely on backup inertial navigation systems to determine their position.
Parts of the dashboard would also have been affected. One of the pilots described the incident as rare, saying he had not experienced such a situation “in a long time.”
A defense official cited by The Times described the Russian action as “dangerous” and “irresponsible”, saying such jamming could have disrupted a civilian plane. The Royal Air Force, however, assures that it is prepared for this type of scenario.
This incident comes a few days after the revelation of interceptions deemed dangerous of British reconnaissance planes by Russian fighters over the Black Sea. London then denounced “dangerous and unacceptable” behavior.
