Today in Technology History
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May 28
Today marks the sixteenth anniversary of one of the oddest stunts in aviation history: a teenage pilot from West Germany flew his small plane past Soviet air defenses and landed it in the heart of Moscow.
During the Cold War, the USSR beefed up its air defenses enormously, incorporating radar, missiles, and other new technologies. The Soviet air defense system was designed to counter U.S. bombers, but its best-known success was in using a missile to shoot down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers in 1960.
By the 1980s, according to news reports, the Soviet air defenses included 2,350 interceptor aircraft, 10,000 radar stations, 100 anti-ballistic missile launchers, over 9,000 surface-to-air missile launchers, and several hundred thousand troops. It was this huge strategic defense network that shot down two Korean airliners in 1978 and 1983.
But despite all the technology at its disposal, the Soviet air defense force did not respond to a small single-engine Cessna flown by nineteen-year-old Mathias Rust of West Germany. On May 28, 1987 -- which was, coincidentally, a Soviet holiday honoring border guards -- Rust took off from Helsinki, Finland. He crossed the Soviet border and flew over Soviet territory for 470 miles in broad daylight. (Rust's plane "must have been a Stealth Cessna," one U.S. official joked to a newspaper.) Rust later told reporters that a Soviet MiG circled his plane twice and then left him alone.
Rust, an amateur pilot, landed his plane in the most heavily protected part of Russia: Red Square, site of the Kremlin. He landed next to St. Basil's Cathedral and taxied his plane over to Lenin's tomb.
Both the Soviet Defense Minister and the head of the Soviet air defense force lost their jobs because of the "intolerable unconcern and indecision" that allowed the embarrassing security breach. Rust, who claimed he undertook the stunt so he could discuss peace with Soviet leader Gorbachev, was sentenced to four years in a Soviet labor camp. He was released after 432 days, and now lives in Germany, where he was convicted of shoplifting a couple of years ago.
Related links:
Click here for an archived version of the homepage of the Mathias Rust Fan Club.
Click here to read about Rust's recent life, including his shoplifting conviction in April 2001.
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