European aviation and insurance circles are on high alert after a jet carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was forced to land in Bulgaria using paper maps when its GPS navigation failed amid suspected Russian jamming.
Officials told the Financial Times that the disruption, which disabled electronic guidance systems as the aircraft approached Plovdiv on Sunday, was “undeniable interference”. The Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority later confirmed the incident, noting a marked rise in jamming and spoofing since 2022.
Although the plane touched down safely, the episode has intensified concerns within the aviation and marine markets about the security of satellite navigation and the insurability of losses arising from electronic manipulation.
The Commission acknowledged that von der Leyen’s flight was targeted, saying it had been informed by Bulgarian authorities that Russia was to blame. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegation, telling the FT that “your information is incorrect”.
Such techniques - long deployed by militaries to shield sensitive sites - are increasingly used to disrupt civilian operations. EU officials warned earlier this year that rising interference risked blinding commercial aircraft mid-flight, particularly across eastern Europe and the Baltic. “Europe is the most affected region globally on this,” a Commission spokesperson said.
Von der Leyen was en route from Warsaw to meet Bulgaria’s prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov, and visit an arms manufacturer. During the trip she described Vladimir Putin as “a predator” who “can only be kept in check through strong deterrence”. Bulgaria, a key supplier of Soviet-era weaponry and more recently artillery for Ukraine, remains central to the EU’s defence response.
For underwriters and brokers, the Plovdiv incident underscores the widening overlap between geopolitical hostility and insurance exposures. Aviation hull and liability policies have traditionally responded to navigation failures. But as the Association of Average Adjusters noted in a recent paper on marine insurance, the surge in spoofing and jamming has complicated questions of cover where cyber exclusions such as LMA5403 apply.
"There's been a notable rise GPS disruption (jamming and spoofing) over recent years across Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but particularly around the Baltic Sea since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine with a large number of civilian flights affected," a former RAF member told Insurance Business.
"Last May, a Russian jamming affected a plane carrying the then UK defence secretary Grant Schapps en route to Poland. Russia is very capable when it comes electronic warfare and while these technologies are usually reserved for disrupting military operations they are creeping further into NATO members' territories affecting civilian navigation & communications systems, most likely as part of Russia’s wider hybrid warfare strategy and as a deniable form of mischief making."
While groundings or forced landings linked to spoofing would historically fall within standard perils, exclusions for “electronic manipulation” now place responsibility on insurers to prove malicious cyber use. This grey area risks disputes over causation and attribution, echoing the ambiguities already troubling the marine market.
Some insurers have begun offering cyber buybacks for an additional premium. For brokers, ensuring clients understand these wordings - and whether traditional aviation and marine risks are eroded by cyber carve-outs - has become an urgent task.
The jamming of Europe’s most senior official’s aircraft highlights the fragility of critical navigation infrastructure. For insurers, it is a reminder that political tensions are not only reshaping the security environment but also redrawing the boundaries of insurable loss.
As von der Leyen herself warned in Bulgaria, deterrence remains the first line of defence. For the insurance sector, the second line will be clarity - about wordings, exclusions and the limits of cover in an era where analogue maps can once again mean the difference between safe landing and disaster.
