There have been mysterious incidents involving drones over Poland for respective days. The machines unexpectedly lose GPS signal and contact with operators, then fly off in unpredictable directions – often, if this happens on the coast, towards the Russian royal circuit. any of them vanish from radars, others end up flying in random places, as the Tricity.pl portal wrote about.
Something unusual is happening with GPS in Poland
Photographers and drone users study this phenomenon. "I was hanging over the ground, possibly 10 meters and taking a group photo. Within seconds, the drone lost contact with GPS and flew away. I had no control over him. The controller showed me that the device was located in the Baltic region of Russia. If it wasn't for the trees, I don't know where he would have gone, and so – he fell to the ground" – described Michael, quoted by the aforementioned portal. A man utilized a drone in Gdynia.
Importantly, the Finnish Border defender besides reported that only from the beginning of the year to the end of May there were 84 cases of GPS interference in the Baltic Sea, more than 3 times the same period last year. The most common incidents occurred in the east part of the Gulf of Finland, in the immediate vicinity of the border with Russia.
The Polish Air Navigation Agency has so issued a informing regarding serious signal disturbances. “Polish Air Navigation Agency in connection with GNSS signal disruptions in the north of Poland has published information about the geographical region for drone users defining the area of occurrence of this phenomenon”, said RMF FM Marcin Hadaj, press spokesperson of the Polish Air Navigation Agency.
One of the planes had to change the airport.
– The region is visible in all the Agency's digital flight planning tools headed by the DroneTower application, in which drone pilots have a legal work to study their flights. We ask all pilots of unmanned aircraft to check the GNSS signal situation each time before the start of the flight – the spokesperson explained the radio station.
Importantly, besides Ryanair aircraft from Alicante to Bydgoszcz was diverted to Poznań.
– We've received reports that due to the GPS signal interference, the aircraft could not land here. A decision was made by the pilot to redirect the aircraft to Poznań. That's where they were expecting approval to land at our airport. After obtaining this consent, the aircraft flew with passengers from Alicante to the destination," said Interii Mateusz Dul, spokesperson for the Airport in Bydgoszcz.
