Video: Peace mission: how an amateur pilot landed a plane on Red Square, and what happened to him after that
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
On August 3, 1988, an unusual prisoner was released from a Soviet prison ahead of schedule. It was Germanic amateur pilot Matthias Rust, a year before that became famous all over the world for the fact that landed a plane on Red Square … Then this event caused a lot of noise: how did the 19-year-old guy manage to discredit the Soviet air defense system, why did he need to commit this insane act, and what punishment did the brave one incur?
One day, 18-year-old Mathias Rust was watching TV, the news reported that negotiations between the American and Soviet governments in Reykjavik were at an impasse. The young man decided that he should help the USSR and the West to improve relations. At least that is how he explained the motives for his action in court: "I thought I could use the plane to build an imaginary bridge between the West and the East, to show how many people in Europe want to improve relations with the USSR."
At that time, Matthias Rust had the rights to control the aircraft, and he had already spent about 50 hours in the air. On May 13, 1987, he informed his parents that he intended to travel by plane in Northern Europe in order to fly the necessary number of hours to obtain the rights of a professional pilot. On May 25, Matthias arrived in Helsinki, on May 28 he told the dispatchers that he was going to Stockholm. But Rust was moving in the wrong direction, and later disappeared from the radar altogether.
A search and rescue operation immediately began in the area of the Finnish coast. A large oil slick was seen on the surface of the sea, and then the assumption arose that the plane had crashed. While they were looking for the pilot at sea, he crossed the Soviet border over Estonia. Of course, the radars immediately spotted him, and soon a MiG fighter was next to him. For some time he accompanied him, but no order for further action was received, and the MiG soon disappeared.
The fact is that in 1984 the Soviet military shot down a South Korean passenger plane, which violated the airspace of the USSR. As a result, people died, and after that, it was forbidden to shoot at civilian and sports aircraft. When Matthias flew in the Pskov area, the local air regiment conducted training flights. Some planes took off, others came in for landing. At 15:00, all the pilots had to change the code at the same time, but due to inexperience, many did not. Because of the confusion that arose, all aircraft were assigned the sign "I am mine", including Rust's plane, which was among them. When he flew over Torzhok, rescue work was carried out there after the plane crash, and Rust's plane was mistaken for a Soviet search helicopter.
On the evening of May 28, the German plane "Cessna" landed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky bridge and reached the St. Basil's Cathedral. The pilot got out of the cockpit and started signing autographs to surprised passers-by and tourists. He was arrested a few minutes later. In the morning, all the newspapers reported a sensation: “The country is in shock! German pilot-athlete dishonored the serious huge defense arsenal of the USSR on the Day of the border guard.
There were several versions of the reasons for Matthias's act: he tried to win a bet, wanted to impress his girlfriend, performed the task of foreign special services, made a spectacular marketing move in support of his father's business - he was selling Cessna planes in Western Europe, and the news that it was - the only aircraft that defeated the Soviet air defense system could help revive demand.
Matias Rust was arrested and tried for disorderly conduct and illegal border crossing. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but a year later he was released early. The head of the Air Defense Forces, the Minister of Defense and about 300 officers have lost their posts. And people began to call Red Square "Sheremetyevo-3" and compose anecdotes on this topic.
Upon his return to his homeland, Rust was deprived of his piloting rights as a "mentally unbalanced" person. Soon he again ended up behind bars: working in a hospital as a nurse, he rushed with a knife at a nurse who refused his courtship. In 2001 he was tried again - this time for stealing a pullover. Apparently, he really could not be called mentally stable.
Rust's "mission of peace" is still being questioned: there are too many inconsistencies and large-scale consequences: after that, massive purges were carried out in the Soviet army - as if they were waiting for a suitable pretext. Therefore, many call Rust's flight a carefully planned provocation, of which there were many at that time: 24 little-known facts about the Cold War
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