In September 2025, a Widerøe Airlines flight attempted to land in Vardø, Norway, which is located in the far east of the country, about 40 miles from the Russian coast. The cloud layer was low, as was visibility. In these gray situations, pilots use GPS technology to help them land on the runway rather than on the side of a mountain.
But on this day, the GPS systems did not work correctly, the airwaves were clogged with signals that did not allow aircraft to access navigation information. Wideroe's plane took off during one of Russia's frequent military exercises in which the country's military simulates conflict as a preparatory exercise. In this case, we were talking about an imaginary war with the country. It was nicknamed “Zapad-2025” (which translated means “West 2025”) and took place directly across the fjord from Vardø. European officials said there was frequent GPS interference in the lead-up to the exercise. They suspected that Russian troops were using GPS jamming technology, a tactic also used in real conflicts. (Russia has in the past denied some allegations of GPS interference.)
Without this guidance from space and in cloudy weather, Widerøe's plane had to abort its landing and continue along the coast away from Russia to Båtsfjord, a fishing village.
