Dozens of aircraft lose GPS over Schiphol, jamming possibly from a North Sea ship

What happened on Monday evening

On Monday, 9 November, dozens of aircraft flying over the Netherlands lost their GPS signals in a deliberate disruption known as jamming. Air traffic control at Schiphol confirmed that the airport's RNP navigation system was disturbed that evening and called jamming a plausible cause. Seven aircraft had difficulty landing, but the spokesperson said safety was never endangered because the planes landed safely by following instructions from the air traffic controller. NRC described the incident as lasting about twenty minutes, while an Air France pilot told the tower the signal had been out for fifteen minutes. The term comes from warfare, where it is used to mislead radio, radar and GPS signals.

How the outage was spotted

Amateur spotter Kees Westerdijk from Friesland saw dozens of aircraft over the Netherlands lose their GPS signal that evening. He receives aircraft signals on an antenna on his roof and publishes them on his FRL Radar website. He said his first reaction was doubt about his own setup.

“I first thought my equipment was broken.”

The aircraft intelligence site Hexbird and the tracking website GPSwise confirmed the incident. Tower messages show a KLM Boeing 737 reporting 'GPS L+R FAIL' at 19 minutes past six, shortly before it had to land, with both of its GPS systems down. Two minutes later a Lufthansa pilot reported 'GPS 1 FAULT' and then 'GPS 2 FAULT'. An Air France pilot said several aircraft had reported the same jamming at the same moment. According to John Wiseman, mainly aircraft flying at high altitude were affected.

Where the interference came from

John Wiseman, an American data analyst who collects aircraft navigation signals and specialises in tracing jamming, located the source in the North Sea, north of Texel. According to his analysis, the disturbance was at sea level and may have come from a ship. Six vessels flying the Russian flag were in the suspect area at that time. Maritime news sites reported that three of them formed a convoy carrying Russian arms, escorted by the Russian navy. Volkskrant reported that military ships from NATO members Denmark and France shadowed the convoy. The three ships and their owner are on the European sanctions list over arms transfers between North Korea, Iran and Russia. Volkskrant stressed that it has not been confirmed these Russian ships were behind the sabotage.

A pattern of jamming

Volkskrant reported a comparable episode in July, when GPS signals were disrupted for 18 minutes near the border between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Before that, the Netherlands was rarely hit by such sabotage, while Eastern Europe has long suffered jamming, presumably from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. NRC described this as the second time in four months that the Netherlands has been targeted on a large scale. In the spring of 2026, the aviation authority of the Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport warned in a report that aviation safety was at stake because of 'geopolitical tensions'. Reports of jamming received by the authority have risen since 2024 to several hundred a month, though most involve Dutch airlines experiencing trouble abroad. The authority links the increase to hybrid warfare. Air traffic control at Schiphol has reported the incident to the security services.