If someone turns off your headlights when you drive at night, it's dangerous. Two Finnair flights from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu were forced to turn around and return to Finland due to GPS interference

On Thursday and Friday, two Finnair flights from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu were forced to turn around and return to Finland due to GPS interference because they could not safely fly to their original destinations.  cell phone jammer

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told the Financial Times: "If someone turns off your headlights when you drive at night, it's dangerous. The situation in the Baltic region close to the Russian border has now become too dangerous to ignore."

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna added: "We believe that what is happening with GPS is part of Russia's hostile activities, and we will definitely discuss this with our allies." Tsahkna stressed: "This behavior is a hybrid attack that poses a threat to our people and security, and we will not tolerate it."

Tens of thousands of civilian flights have been affected by GPS jamming in recent months, according to experts. The jamming affects all GPS users in the region, and it has also blocked signals used by ships in the Baltic Sea, leading the Swedish navy to issue a warning about shipping safety.

GPS jamming is easy to carry out using relatively cheap equipment, according to experts. No country has admitted to being behind the jamming of signals in the Baltics, but officials in the region say there is no doubt that Russia is behind the jamming both on its home turf and in its Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

One theory is that Russia is trying to protect Kaliningrad from potential attacks by Ukrainian drones, a senior official said. The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. London confirmed in March that a government plane carrying British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps had its GPS jammed near Kaliningrad on its way home from Poland. signal jammer

GPS expert Dana Goward said: "The chances of an incident are rising." Goldwater, who is president of the GPS user advocacy group Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, added that while there are backup systems, crews receive less training on them than on GPS and that "without GPS, aviation will be less efficient and less safe".