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A summit between the US and Soviet presidents in Reykjavik had ended in a stalemate, and the teenager who had a passion for politics felt he wanted to do something to make a difference.

"I thought every human on this planet is responsible for some progress and I was looking for an opportunity to take my share in it," he says.

Rust already had a pilot's licence and had clocked up 50 hours in the air when it occurred to him to put his skill to use.


Rust was sentenced to four years in a labour camp

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His first stop was in the Shetland Islands, then the Faroe Islands. He spent one night in each.

Next came the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, then Bergen in Norway before he arrived on 25 May in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

He spent several days there trying to decide if he really had the courage to go through with his plan. He had good reason to be nervous.

The USSR had the largest air defence system in the world. Less than five years earlier, a South Korean civilian airliner had been shot down after straying into Soviet air space, causing the death of all 269 passengers on board.

"Of course I was afraid to lose my life," Rust recalls.

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An enormous manhunt was launched by the Finnish coastguard and when a patch of oil was spotted on the sea surface, divers were brought in to search for a wreck.

While they were hunting for him, Rust was sitting snug in his cockpit as his plane crossed into Soviet airspace, over Estonia.

Within minutes he had been picked up by Soviet radar, and less than an hour later a MiG fighter jet approached him.

"It passed me on my left side so close that I could see the two pilots sitting in the cockpit and I saw of course the red star of the wing of the aircraft."

Rust was terrified, but instead of attacking him, the jet passed by and disappeared into the clouds.

A combination of unbelievable luck and human error had led to Rust's plane being mistaken for a friendly aircraft.

A plane crash the previous day, and an ongoing rescue operation, along with training for new pilots had led to confusion in the air and in control centres.



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On the ground, Soviet citizens were stopping and looking up in amazement as the small white plane circled just 30 ft (10m) above the ground.

Finally Rust spotted a four-lane bridge next to St Basil's Cathedral so he circled around one more time and touched down there.

Later, when he was questioned by the Russian police, he learned that the bridge was usually spanned by thick cables, which would have made a landing impossible.

By chance, they had been removed from the bridge that very morning for maintenance.

"The police presumed that I had co-operators in Moscow who had arranged it so that I would be able to land," Rust says.



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Once the police had recovered from the shock of finding an unauthorised aircraft parked at the gates of the Kremlin, Rust was arrested.

He spent hours trying to persuade the authorities that he had acted alone and was not part of some sinister plot hatched by foreign governments.


“A big crowd had formed around me,” Rust says. “People were smiling and coming up to shake my hand or ask for autographs. There was a young Russian guy who spoke English. He asked me where I came from. I told him I came from the West and wanted to talk to Gorbachev to deliver this peace message that would [help Gorbachev] convince everybody in the West that he had a new approach.”

In the Kremlin there was shock and plenty of red faces as the full extent of the humiliating incident became apparent.

But it is likely that President Gorbachev realised he could use the opportunity to his advantage to rid himself of military officials whom he saw as standing in the way of his reforms.

Within a couple of days the minister of defence had been forced to retire, and the head of the air defence services had been sacked. Over the next few months more than 150 people lost their jobs.


Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev

*Rust bypasses Soviet air defence system of 2,250 aircraft and 10,000 surface-to-air missiles

*Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev holds an emergency meeting of the ruling Politburo - it criticises air defence ministers for carelessness and lack of decisiveness

*Defence Minister Sergei Sokolov is forced to retire - air defence chief Alexander Koldunov is sacked

*About 150 officers are removed from their posts

Rust was charged and pleaded guilty to violating international flight rules and illegally crossing the Soviet border. After some confusion in court he pleaded not guilty to "malicious hooliganism".

The judge sentenced him to four years in a labour camp for what he called an act of adventurism.


Rust's trial started in Moscow on September 2, 1987. He was sentenced
to four years following light regime terms for hooliganism, disregard
of aviation laws and breaching of the Soviet border.

Despite being allowed to serve his time in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, Rust took his confinement badly.

"It was really hard for me being just 19 years old to just be locked up for 23 hours a day. I had a lot of difficulty keeping food down and I lost a lot of weight," he says.

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Mathias Rust, age 19, during the trial


Mathias Rust at age 39. This photo was probably taken at a
press conference in 2007 - the 20th anniversary of the event


He now works as yoga instructor and financial analyst

Rust never piloted an airplane again. In fact, he spent many years trying to distance himself from his famous flight. In 2002 he founded a meditation service designed to “fight violence by providing proper redress,” for which he has spent a lot of time in the Middle East, mostly in Palestinian territories, but to help pay the bills Rust also works for a London-based investment firm.

Though frustrated that he never got to meet Gorbachev, he takes satisfaction in having had a small but important impact on relations between the superpowers. Four years after his “mission,” the forces that his flight helped to strengthen dissolved the Soviet Union, and the cold war ended.

As for Mathias Rust himself – he has been in trouble a few times since. He stabbed a girl twice in the stomach with a knife in 1989 when she refused to go out with him. He spent 15 months in jail for that offence.

In 1996 he became engaged to a daughter of a rich Indian tea merchant and converted to Hinduism.

In 2001 he was convicted for stealing a cashmere pullover and ordered to pay 10,000 marks; the sentence was later reduced to 600 marks. In 2005, he was convicted of fraud and had to pay €1,500 for stolen goods.

He lived in several different places around the world during the 1990’s, but today he has settled back into a small town outside his birthplace, Hamburg. He is now working as a financial advisor, advising private investors and companies about investment in properties in the Baltic countries and elsewhere.. Rust has also discovered another source of income. He has become a keen Poker player for high stakes, and has come away from the table with a major windfall on several occasions.

Over a period of five evenings playing poker on a yacht he won €750,000.

He is busy writing his memoirs and will publish the book in 2012 on the 25th anniversary of his landing in Red Square.

Main article source: The Notorious Flight of Mathias Rust, Ronald Reagan was president, there was still a Soviet Union, and a 19-year-old pilot set out to change the world. By Tom LeCompte - Air & Space Magazine, July 01, 2005

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the plane, a Reims Cessna Skyhawk D-ECJB


The Reims Cessna Skyhawk D-ECJB flying over Red Square after
Rust had to abort the landing due to too many tourists in the way


D-ECJB was bought by a Japanese businessman and hoisted onto this hideous display stand at a sports complex in Utsunomiya, about 100km north of Tokyo. Due to the unsightly state of the aircraft after more than a decade in the open, it was taken down and stored in a barn

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D-ECJB hangs from the roof of the foyer in the German Museum of Technology as part of the exhibition "Ascension to the Red Square - Over all Borders, against all Rules". This exhibition focuses on international aviation law at the time of the Cold War

more at http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=world&action=print&thread=9722

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