Putin’s hackers attack thousands of British holiday flights in ‘extremely dangerous Russian jamming’

British holiday flights have been hit by suspected Russian jamming as experts brand the tactic “extremely dangerous”.

Vladimir Putin’s hackers are believed to be affecting British aircrafts by attacking satnavs so that flights are unsure of routes and struggle to tell others where they are.

The attacks have forced planes to reroute to avoid fake obstacles.

A total of 2,309 Ryanair flights and 1,368 Wizz Air planes reported satnav problems in the Baltic region in eight months to the end of March.

While 82 British Airways flights, seven Jet2 aircrafts, four EasyJet flights and seven operated by TUI were also affected.

Aviation experts have warned that the suspected jamming and spoofing by Russia is a major threat to air safety.

Spoofing uses fake signals to make aircrafts believe they are somewhere they’re not, while jamming drowns out genuine signals from satellites including GPS and Europe’s Galileo system.

“The information from the Russians is spurious. It is extremely dangerous,” an industry source told The Sun.

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Europe’s air safety watchdog branded the jamming and spoofing as “attacks” but did not confirm who was responsible.

Luc Tytgat, boss of EASA, said: “We have seen a sharp rise in attacks on these systems, which poses a safety risk.”

However, researchers at GPSJAM.org admit that the signals do not prove jamming conclusively.

It said: “Areas where a significant percentage of aircraft report low navigation accuracy seem to correlate well with areas of known and suspected jamming.”

Glenn Bradley, from the UK Civil Aviation Authority, insisted that flying remains one of the safest forms of travel.

He said: “There are several safety protocols in place to protect navigation systems on commercial aircraft.

“GPS jamming does not directly impact the navigation of an aircraft and while it’s a known issue, this does not mean an aircraft has been jammed deliberately.

“While operators have mitigations in place to assure continued safe operations, we work closely with other aviation regulators, airlines and aircraft manufacturers to curb and mitigate any risks posed by jamming and continuously monitor incidents worldwide.”