Something strange is happening with drones in Pomerania. Suspicions fall on Russians and NATO

Since Saturday, industry portals dealing with cybersecurity have been receiving dozens of reports of strange behavior of drones operating in northern Poland .

- Drones suddenly fly off in a random direction and crash. Mass reports of loss of control over drones come from the north of the country - said one of the warnings, issued by the website niebezpiecznik.pl, published on the X platform.

Operators from northern Poland are losing control over their drones.

According to reports from drone users, the machines can suddenly move at speeds of up to 120 km/h and then fall precipitously - sometimes centimetres from unsuspecting people.

As explained by the website niebezpiecznik.pl, although suspicions regarding GPS signal jamming are immediately directed towards Russians operating from the territory of the Königsberg Oblast, the matter is not so clear-cut .

Russians have been jamming GPS for a long time, losing control is a relatively new issue

According to niebezpiecznik.pl, Russians have been using this type of activity in the Baltic region for a long time - at least for two years - but the drones have only started to "go crazy" for a few, a dozen or so weeks . Moreover, GPS jamming itself, i.e. spoofing, would not de facto cause the drones to self-destruct.

In the case of GPS spoofing, the drone operator can still control it and bring it back to him using ATTI mode, for example. In such a case, the drone, not detecting the GPS signal or other vision systems, maintains its altitude and tilt on its own - it is still under the operator's control.

According to experts, in addition to GPS spoofing, we are also dealing with the so-called jamming of the radio protocol used to control DJI drones - the drone manufacturer, which seems to be the common denominator of all these accidents that take place in northern Poland. Drones lost connection with the controller, which is in the hand of the operator .

In such a case, the drone should either "hover" in the air until communication is restored, or go into RTH mode, i.e. return to the starting point and land there .

The fact that the drones lost contact with the operator's pilot and after a while began to suddenly fly rapidly in a different direction means, according to niebezpiecznik.pl, that they were configured for RTH, but due to jamming of the frequency they were using and GPS spoofing, the "home" maneuver meant traveling in a completely different direction than the take-off point .

The crash into the obstacle was caused by the drone becoming disoriented, and the fall was caused by loss of battery power.

Among the hypotheses as to the reasons for this state of affairs, apart from the above-mentioned Russians and Königsberg, there is also internal interference in jamming the systems, as well as the NATO Baltops 25 exercises taking place in the Baltic Sea .

GPS disruptions also affect the aviation industry

According to regional media, navigation problems in northern Poland have affected more than just drones. On Monday morning, a Ryanair flight from Alicante, Spain, to Bydgoszcz was forced to land in Poznań, precisely because of GPS disruptions. This meant a delay in the flight's takeoff from Bydgoszcz to Spain.

- There were temporary disruptions in the GPS system and the plane could not land. It was redirected to Poznań. In a few moments it should arrive with passengers who flew from Alicante - Mateusz Dul, spokesman for the Bydgoszcz Airport , told the expressbydgoski.pl portal after 11:00.