Very often on social networks you can find a picture of this landing, as an illustration of the helplessness of the Soviet military and air defense in particular in front of Matthias Rust. Moreover, immediately after the flight of Rust, a persistent myth appeared that the military, celebrating the Day of the Border Guard, the intruder plane, as they say, “flapped”.
However, this conclusion is completely wrong.
How it was
Rust received his pilot's license in 1986 at the Hamburg flying club. In the same flying club in May 1987, the German rented a Cessna-172, and also received detailed maps required for the flight. According to Rust, he did not inform anyone of his true intentions.
Starting on May 13 from the airport of Itersen, Rust reached Iceland through the Shetland Islands and the Faroe Islands on May 15. On May 22, the German flew to the Norwegian Bergen, from there on May 25 to the Finnish Helsinki.
Promotional video:
In the capital of Finland, he made the final decision to fly to Moscow.
On the morning of May 28, having refueled the Cessna, Rust took off from the airfield, stating Stockholm as the target. The aerodrome staff noticed that the Cessna was not just filled to capacity, but additional fuel tanks were also installed in the cabin. The flight to Stockholm clearly did not require that much fuel. Nevertheless, Rust was allowed to take off.
The Cessna took off at 12:21 pm, and twenty minutes later the plane exited the airport control area. Rust cut off communication with the air traffic control service, turned to the coastline of the Baltic Sea and at about 13:00 disappeared from Finnish airspace near Sipoo.
The Finnish dispatchers regarded the disappearance of "Cessna" as a possible accident, having raised the alarm for rescue services.
Rescuers found an oily spot in the sea, which made it possible to conclude that a disaster had occurred. Where the stain came from is not clear to this day. Subsequently, when it became known where Rust's plane actually flew, the Finns billed him 100 thousand dollars for the work of rescuers. True, when there was a lot of noise around the flight in the world, the lawsuit was withdrawn.
At that moment, Matias Rust's Cessna crossed the Soviet border near the town of Kohtla-Järve and headed for Moscow. The pilot was guided by a magnetic compass and pre-planned objects - Lake Peipsi, Lake Ilmen, Lake Seliger, the Rzhev-Moscow railway line.
At 14:10 "Cessna" was discovered by radio-technical means of air defense units. Three anti-aircraft missile divisions were put on alert, but they did not receive orders for destruction.
Later, Rust's plane was also visually detected in the area of the city of Gdov by Soviet fighters, who identified it as a "Yak-12 sports aircraft".
The Cessna was sailing at low altitude and low speed, and the fighters were not able to accompany the light-engine aircraft. Therefore, flying around the intruder, they returned to base.
The picture of the helplessness of the Soviet military before Matthias Rust, firmly entrenched in many, is completely wrong. Indeed, the air defense system is being built with an eye to much more serious and dangerous targets than a light aircraft.
Nevertheless, "Cessna" was spotted and could be destroyed. However, orders for such actions were not received from Moscow. First of all, because the history of the destruction of the South Korean passenger Boeing on September 1, 1983 dominated the USSR. And although in that story, by and large, there was no fault of the Soviet side, the Kremlin in no case wanted a repetition of such an incident.
In addition, the report of the pilots confirmed that we were talking about a light-engine civil aircraft, and the Soviet military had no right to shoot down civilian aircraft. In fact, the same was the case with the South Korean Boeing, since it was mistakenly identified as an American reconnaissance aircraft.
The Convention on International Aviation, also known as the "Chicago Convention", prescribes that when the airspace of countries is violated by light-engine sports aircraft, they should not be shot down, but forced to land. It was not possible to plant Rust with the help of combat fighters for the reasons described above, and the military did not find another way quickly.
And here is the version that just underlies the opinion about the mistakes of the military and air defense on that day (in fact, it is enshrined in Wikipedia)
It is alleged that in the Pskov region, training flights of the local air regiment took place. Some planes took off, others came in for landing. At exactly 15.00, the code of the state recognition system was changed, while all the pilots had to simultaneously change this code. But some of the young "eagles" did not perform this simple operation: was forgetfulness or lack of experience let down? In any case, the system made them “alien”. In this "mess of planes" one of the commanders, without understanding the situation, automatically assigned all fighters the sign "I am mine". Who knew that Rust's plane would be among the cars ?! Rust made his further flight with a Soviet air registration. Rust received a second legalization near Torzhok, where rescue operations were carried out after the collision of two of our planes - the German low-speed Tsesna was mistaken for a Soviet search helicopter.
When the military realized that they were observing the intruder, he was already entering the zone of the Moscow Air Defense District. There and at the Central Command Post of the Air Defense, they reported about a Soviet light-engine aircraft that had taken off without an application - such air objects were observed quite often. The operational duty officer of the Central Command Center, Major General S. I. Melnikov and the Acting Chief of the General Staff of Air Defense, Lieutenant General E. L. Timokhin hoped that in the Moscow District they would deal with him themselves and, having no characteristics of the intruder, did not report to the Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense Marshal A. I. Koldunov. At the command post of the Moscow District, they did not attach importance to "a simple violator of the flight regime."
The commander of the Soviet anti-missile and anti-space defense forces (in 1986-1991) V. M. Kraskovsky expressed the opinion many years later that Marshal Koldunov “would not have stopped before taking the most extreme measures” if he had learned about the incident in time.
Yet there are other documented facts:
The first to spot him was the radar operator, Private Dilmagombetov, about which he immediately reported to the officer on duty at the company's control room, Captain Osipov. Then the operator of another station, Lance corporal Shargorodsky, spotted the mark from "Cessna" Rust, and informed the operational duty officer that he was observing an unidentified target. However, at a higher command post, the issuance of information "upstairs" was delayed by 15 minutes, taking a timeout to find out who was flying - a violator of the state border or a violator of the flight regime. The decisions were made by Lieutenant Colonel Karpets and Major Chernykh, who were later made guilty of this whole story - they were demoted and sentenced by a military tribunal for five years.
But the information, albeit with a delay, was issued further on command. A fighter, piloted by Senior Lieutenant Puchnin, took off to intercept Rust. He flew twice over the Cessna and reported to the ground that in front of him was "a light-engine sports aircraft with a blue stripe along the fuselage." If he had then received a command from the ground to destroy the border violator, he would have easily done it. According to Rust, recorded in the interrogation protocol, he had only seen a Soviet interceptor once and even made out orange overalls and oxygen masks of Soviet pilots sitting in one row in the cockpit.
“I was waiting for the landing command,” Rust said. - But it did not follow. So I kept course 117, moving at 600.
Rust was cunning. He was not going to land, because his task was to reach Red Square by all means. And the violator was flown around more than once. To avoid further encounters with fighters, Rust will then go to low altitude. Such a decision could only be made by a pilot who was well aware of the ways to counter our air defense system.
Although Rust could have been easily shot down that day. This decision has already been made by General Kromin, the commander of the Leningrad Separate Air Defense Army. The instructions, which came into being after the September events of 1983, when a South Korean Boeing was shot down in the Far East, as if by mistake, violated the Soviet border, interfered. The instruction forbade shooting down passenger and light-engine aircraft of a sports type, and the general was painfully looking for a solution, thereby saving the life of a German guy. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of his talks at the Army Command:
- Well, are we going to shoot down? The pilot reports: of the Yak-12 type (Soviet light-engine aircraft of the sports type, similar to the "Cessna").
The general decided that he was dealing with a flight regime violator who forgot to turn on the identification mode on board or flew out with faulty equipment. The target was handed over to the units of the Moscow District for escort, which regularly “guided” it until the mark from “Cessna” disappeared from the indicator screens.
Thus, "Cessna" flew safely to Moscow at 18:30. As Rust himself said, he wanted to sit in the Kremlin or on Red Square, since he simply did not know other places in Moscow. But in the Kremlin there were no conditions for landing, and there were many people on Red Square.
As a result, the pilot, entering from the side of Bolshaya Ordynka, sat down on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge, which can rightfully be called the Rustov bridge from that time on, and rode up to St. Basil's Cathedral.
Curious people have gathered around the plane. Rust got out of the cockpit, began to communicate with people. Among the Muscovites and guests of the capital, there was a schoolboy with excellent knowledge of a foreign language, who served as a translator. They began to take autographs from the German pilot.
Surprisingly, in the first minutes, there were no intelligence officers among those who surrounded Rust. Only the police officer on duty asked if the pilot had a visa and, having learned that it was not there, left the German alone.
While Matias Rust was telling Muscovites about his desire to talk to Gorbachev, the military appeared and cordoned off the plane, but did not take any tough action. Only at about 20:00 three people in civilian clothes suggested that Rust come in to give explanations.
Later, the pilot said that he was interrogated somewhere near Red Square. This is not surprising - Muscovites know that the KGB building complex is within walking distance of the Kremlin.
Lefortovo hospitality
We communicated with Rust politely, asked who organized the flight and what his goals were. The German insisted - he was for peace and friendship, he flew in to express his support to Gorbachev.
He really supported Gorbachev - thanks to his flight, the Soviet leader dealt a powerful blow to the positions of the military, who critically assessed his policy.
But Gorbachev did not want to meet with Rust. The German's hopes that he would be scolded and released were also not justified. He was charged with hooliganism, violation of aviation laws and illegal border crossing. On September 4, 1987, Matthias Rust was sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Versions
Later at the trial, the pilot will declare that with his flight he wanted to call for peace. The world media put forward their own, more "romantic" versions - Rust was trying to impress a girl or win a bet. Soviet newspapers were published under the headlines "The country is in shock!" Sure! An amateur pilot, a German (!), "On the move dishonored the huge defense arsenal of the USSR and even on such a holiday - the Day of the Border Guard." They also said that Rust's flight was a marketing ploy. His father was a dealer for Tsesna in Western Europe. Aircraft sales by this time had declined. It is clear that after such an "advertisement" - "the only aircraft that could" defeat "the Soviet air defense system" - the business of the company went on the mend. The Soviet military were convinced that the action was nothing more than the intrigues of foreign special services.
In fact, Rust spent only 432 days in the Lefortovo remand prison. Although they treated him correctly, the German was depressed. And in vain - the Soviet prison looked like a much more pleasant alternative than the "surface-to-air" missile, which could well "visit" Rust during the flight.
In the summer of 1988, the famous head of the USSR Foreign Ministry, and at that time the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Andrei Gromyko, signed a decree on amnesty for Rust. On August 3, 1988, the pilot returned to Germany, where he became a very popular person for a while.
However, this did not last too long.
Rust was remembered again in the fall of 1989, when he was put on trial in Germany. He underwent alternative service in the hospital, where he stabbed a nurse who did not share his love feelings. In 1991, a German court sentenced Matthias Rust to 4 years - that is, to the same term as the Soviet court had previously. As in the USSR, in Germany they showed leniency to him, having released him after 15 months in prison.
Then Rust traveled the world, married an Indian woman, converted to Hinduism, became disillusioned with both his wife and religion, returned home, where he was again on trial - in 2001 he was caught stealing a sweater in a department store.
It seems that the memories of the flight to Moscow became the main business of his life for him. He willingly meets with journalists, talking about him, to his 25th birthday in 2012, he even released a memoir.
At the same time, in 2012, the Stern magazine published the opinion of 44-year-old Matthias Rust about his act, committed in May 1987: “Now I look at what happened in a completely different way. I would definitely not repeat this and would call my plans of that time unrealizable. It was an irresponsible act."