Mathias Rust

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Mathias Rust
Rust in 2012
Born (1968-06-01) 1 June 1968 (age 56)
Wedel,[citation needed] Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany
Known forIllegally landing a small aircraft on Moscow's Red Square

Mathias Rust (born 1 June 1968)

Soviet Air Force interceptor aircraft. The Soviet fighters did not receive permission to shoot him down, and his aeroplane was mistaken for a friendly aircraft several times. Also, 28 May 1987 was Border Guards Day, leaving many guards distracted.[4] He landed on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the USSR
.

Rust said he wanted to create an "imaginary bridge" to

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and released.[5][6]

Rust's flight through a supposedly impenetrable air defence system had a great effect on the Soviet military and resulted in the dismissal of many senior officers, including

Alexander Koldunov. The incident aided Mikhail Gorbachev in the implementation of his reforms, by allowing him to dismiss numerous military officials opposed to his policies.[7]

Moscow flight

Flight path.

Rust, aged 18, was an inexperienced pilot, with about 50 hours of flying experience at the time of his flight. On 13 May 1987, Rust left

Hofdi House, the site of unsuccessful talks between the USA's and USSR's governments during October 1986) as a method of testing his piloting skills.[5]

On 28 May 1987, Rust refuelled at Helsinki-Malmi Airport. He told air traffic control that he was going to Stockholm, and took off at 12:21. Immediately after his final communication with traffic control, he turned his plane to the east near Nummela, Vihti. Air traffic controllers tried to contact him as he was moving around the busy Helsinki–Moscow route, but Rust had turned off all his communications equipment.[5][8]

Rust disappeared from the Finnish air traffic radar near Espoo.[5] Control personnel presumed an emergency and a rescue effort was organized, including a Finnish Border Guard patrol boat. They found an oil patch near Sipoo where Rust had disappeared from radar observation, and conducted an underwater search but did not find anything.

Rust crossed the

Senior Lieutenant A. Puchnin observed a white sport airplane similar to a Yakovlev Yak-12 and asked for permission to engage, but was denied.[5][10]

The fighters lost contact with Rust soon after this. While they were being directed back to him, he disappeared from radar near Staraya Russa. West German magazine Bunte speculated that he might have landed there for some time, noting that he changed his clothes during his flight and that he took too much time to fly to Moscow considering his airplane's speed and the weather conditions.

Air defence re-established contact with Rust's plane several times but confusion resulted from all of these events. The PVO system had shortly before been divided into several districts, which simplified management but created additional work for tracking officers at the districts' borders. The local air regiment near Pskov was on maneuvers and, due to inexperienced pilots' tendency to forget correct IFF designator settings, local control officers assigned all traffic in the area friendly status, including Rust.[5]

Near Torzhok, there was a similar situation, as increased air traffic was created by a search and rescue operation. Rust, flying a slow propeller-driven aircraft, was confused with one of the helicopters participating with the operation. He was detected several more times and given false friendly recognition twice. Rust was considered as a domestic training airplane defying regulations, and was assigned the least priority by air defense.[5]

Around 19:00, Rust appeared above Moscow. He had initially intended to land in the

St. Basil's Cathedral. A later inquiry found that trolleybus wires normally strung over the bridge—which would have prevented his landing there—had been removed for maintenance that morning, and were replaced the next day.[5] After taxiing past the cathedral, he stopped about 100 metres (330 ft) from the square, where he was greeted by curious passersby and asked for autographs.[11] When asked where he was from, he replied "Germany" making the bystanders think he was from East Germany; but when he said West Germany, they were surprised.[12] A British doctor videotaped Rust circling over Red Square and landing on the bridge.[12] Rust was arrested two hours later.[13]

Aftermath

D-ECJB at the German Museum of Technology in Berlin (2010).

Rust's trial began in Moscow on 2 September 1987. He was sentenced to four years in a general-regime labour camp for hooliganism, for disregard of aviation laws, and for breaching the Soviet border.[14] He was never transferred to a labour camp, and instead served his time at the high security Lefortovo temporary detention facility in Moscow. Two months later, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to sign a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe, and the Supreme Soviet ordered Rust to be released in August 1988 as a goodwill gesture to the West.[5]

Rust's return to Germany on 3 August 1988 was accompanied by huge media attention, but he did not talk to the journalists assembled; his family had sold the exclusive rights to the story to the German magazine Stern for 100,000 DM.[12] He reported that he had been treated well in the Soviet prison. Journalists described him as "psychologically unstable and unworldly in a dangerous manner".[12]

Alexander Koldunov were dismissed along with hundreds of other officers. This was the biggest turnover in the Soviet military since Stalin's purges 50 years earlier.[5][15]

Rust's rented Reims Cessna F172P (serial #F17202087),[16] registered D-ECJB, was sold to Japan where it was exhibited for several years. In 2008 it was returned to Germany and was placed in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin.[17][18]

Because Rust's flight seemed harmful to the authority of the Soviet regime, it was the source of numerous jokes and

Sheremetyevo-3 (Sheremetyevo-1 and -2 being the two terminals at Moscow's international airport).[19] At the end of 1987, the police radio code used by law enforcement officers in Moscow was allegedly updated to include a code for an aircraft landing.[20]

At Saka Manor Park in Estonia, there is a monument dedicated to Rust's flight.[21]

Later life

On 24 November 1989, while doing his obligatory community service (

investment bank, dividing his time between Hamburg, Switzerland and Asia, and is training to be a yoga teacher. He said he had plans to open a yoga school in Hamburg.[4]

Peace activism

In October 2015,

New Cold War between Russia and the Western powers, Rust suggested that India should be cautious and avoid entanglement: "India will be better served if it follows a policy of neutrality while interacting with EU member countries as the big European powers at present are following the foreign policy of the U.S. unquestioningly". He claimed: "Governments have been dominated by the corporate entities and citizens have ceased to matter in public policy".[26]

In the media

After the 20th anniversary of his flight on 28 May 2007, international media interviewed Rust about the flight and its aftermath.

The Washington Post and Bild both have online editions of their interviews.[27] The most comprehensive televised interview available online is produced by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. In their interview Rust in Red Square, recorded in May 2007, Rust gives a full account of the flight in English.[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv: Eine Cessna auf dem Roten Platz – Mathias Rust in Moskau". www.dra.de (in German). Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  2. ^ "The Notorious Flight of Mathias Rust".
  3. ^ "A Cessna-sized Hole in the Iron Curtain, Revisited".
  4. ^ a b c Connolly, Kate (14 May 2012). "German who flew to Red Square during cold war admits it was irresponsible". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l LeCompte, Tom (July 2005). "The Notorious Flight of Mathias Rust". Air & Space/Smithsonian. Washington, D.C. Retrieved 4 April 2009.
  6. ^ a b Hadjimatheou, Chloe (7 December 2012). "Mathias Rust: German teenager who flew to Red Square". BBC World Service. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  7. ^ Miller, Chris (2016). The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 153.
  8. ^ coptercrazy (n.d.). "Listing of Production Reims F172". Archived from the original on 14 March 2005. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  9. ^ Khodarenok, Mikhail (28 May 2017). Руста прикрыли облака [Rust hidden by clouds]. Gazeta.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  10. ^ Kraskovsky, Voltaire Makarovich. "Нарушитель стал "своим" (The Intruder Became "His")". Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  11. ^ "The Teenage Pilot Who Could Have Caused a Global Crisis". Time. 28 May 2015.
  12. ^ a b c d e Locke, Stefan (12 May 2012). "Der lange Irrflug der Friedenstaube" [The long erratic flight of the peace dove]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Frankfurt. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  13. ^ Rehrmann, Marc-Oliver (26 June 2009). "Der Kremlflieger Mathias Rust kehrt zurück" [The Kremlin Flyer Mathias Rust returns] (in German). Hamburg: Norddeutscher Rundfunk. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  14. ^ Barringer, Felicity (9 December 1987). "German in Red Square Flight Is Denied a Pardon". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  15. S2CID 154856417
    .
  16. Deutsches Technikmuseum (14 May 2009), Cessna F 172 P „Skyhawk II"
    , retrieved 18 October 2012
  17. ^ Reims Cessna F172P, D-ECJB, in the Deutsches Technikmuseum, 2009 Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ^ "Himmelfahrt zum Roten Platz – Deutsches Technikmuseum zeigt Cessna 172, mit der Mathias Rust 1987 in Moskau landete". Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2011.
  19. ^ Bushansky, Valentin (28 May 2008). "10 фактов о Матиасе Русте ко Дню пограничника" [10 Facts about Mathias Rust on Border Guard's Day] (in Russian). Fraza. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  20. ^ Милицейские байки. 15-й десяток (in Russian).
  21. ^ "Punasel väljakul maandunud mees sai Saka mõisa mälestusmärgi" ERR, 27 May 2022 (In Estonian)
  22. ^ "Bekenntnisse des Kremlfliegers". stern.de (in German). 8 May 2012. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  23. ^ a b c Krüger, Ralf E.; Grages, Anna (25 May 2007). "Moskau-Flug: Der Kremlflieger pokert hoch" [The Kremlin Flyer raises the stakes]. Westdeutsche Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  24. ^ Connolly, Kate (21 April 2001). "German daredevil grounded by court". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  25. Spiegel Online
     (in German). 6 June 2009. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
  26. ^ "Cold War is back: German peace activist". The Hindu. 4 October 2015.
  27. ^ Finn, Peter (27 May 2007). "A Dubious Diplomat". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  28. YouTube
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