On May 28, 1987, the plane of 18-year-old German boy Matthias Rust landed on Red Square. We recall the seven main facts of the "action" of the German hipster, which surprised the whole world.
Hamburg-Helsinki-Moscow
Matias Rust left the Malami airfield in Helsinki on the afternoon of May 28. Stockholm was designated as the ultimate flight destination of the American-made Tsesna sports aircraft. The Finnish attendants laughed: "The boy, you see, is going to fly to America." Still would! It is not more than an hour and a half to Sweden, and the tanks are filled to capacity, and even more are installed in the cabin. Matthias really wasn't going to the Swedish capital. His target was "gold-headed", but at that moment no one knew about it. For the first 20 minutes, the pilot walked along the designated route, then he contacted the dispatcher, informing him that everything was in order and saying goodbye. On this day, he did not get in touch anymore.
Annushka didn't pour the oil for sure
After Mathias turned off all communications, his plane soon disappeared from the radar screens. A rescue group was urgently sent to the place of the last coordinates of the aircraft, which discovered an impressive oil slick on the sea surface. It was decided that the plane had crashed. Rescuers even called divers to help them comb the bottom in search of Matthias. Later, the "Kremlin pilot" will receive from the Finnish authorities a bill for "rescue" in the amount of 100 thousand dollars. Where the stain came from is still a mystery.
Promotional video:
Reference 8255
While Finnish rescuers were looking for Rust at sea, he crossed the border of the Land of the Soviets in the Kohtla-Järve region (Estonia) over the Gulf of Finland. It is wrong to say that the plane went unnoticed. In Estonia, it was led for some time by two fighters, which were alerted. However, they received no instructions for any action and returned to base. The pilot was also spotted by the Soviet air defense - at 14:29 the "object" that did not respond to the call sign "friend or foe" was assigned the number 8255. Three missile divisions were put on alert, but no command to defeat the target followed. However, this is not surprising: after the story of the Korean Boeing, which our military shot down over the Pacific Ocean in 1984, an order was issued that prohibited the opening of fire on sports and civil aircraft.
I flew well
It is unlikely that Rust could have known that around three o'clock, when he was already in the Pskov region, training flights of the local air regiment would take place there. 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 secondary legalization near Torzhok,where rescue operations were carried out after the collision of two of our planes - the low-speed Tsesna was mistaken for a Soviet search helicopter.
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.
Crime and Punishment
At 19.10 Matias Rust landed his car on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, drove to St. Basil's Cathedral, got out of the plane and began signing autographs and posing in front of cameras. The photo and autograph session, however, did not last long: Matthias Rust was arrested. He spent his birthday, June 1, in prison. The most humane court in the world sentenced him to 4 years in prison. On August 3 of the following year, Matthias Rust was pardoned and expelled from the USSR. In total, the "impudent air kurenok" spent 433 days in Moscow. After his return to Germany, he was deprived of the right to fly an airplane as a person "mentally unbalanced." Rust confirmed this definition: while serving in the hospital, he attacked a nurse with a knife for allegedly refusing to go on a date with him. Then he was caught stealing a sweater from a supermarket. In general, if the Soviets got shock and shock, then the German people, instead of a national hero, found an ordinary hooligan.