May 28 — a German sports plane landed on Red Square in Moscow. Untouched by Soviet air defense, an American-made Cessna sports aircraft violated the USSR’s airspace and landed in Moscow near Red Square, on Vasilyevsky Spusk. More precisely, it touched down on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge and then rolled on to St. Basil’s Cathedral. Countless tourist cameras and camcorders captured the moment when the pilot climbed out of the cockpit and immediately began handing out autographs. Ten minutes later, he was arrested. The violator turned out to be a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany: 19-year-old athlete-pilot Mathias Rust. His father was a businessman who sold Cessna aircraft in Germany. Rust’s plane crossed the Soviet air border at 14:20 at an altitude of 600 meters over the Gulf of Finland, in the area of the Estonian city of Kohtla-Jarve. Air-defense radar detected it, and on-duty missile units were put on combat alert.
A fighter interceptor was dispatched and quickly spotted the intruder. But it was not permitted to shoot down the Cessna, and all the way to Moscow Rust’s plane was “escorted.” The reason was that since 1984 the USSR had an order in effect prohibiting opening fire on civilian and sports aircraft.
Newspapers of the time wrote: “The country is in shock! An amateur pilot—and, to make matters worse, a German—has instantly disgraced the enormous defense arsenal of the USSR, and on such a holiday as Border Guards Day.” As a result, Defense Minister Sergey Sokolov, Air Defense Commander-in-Chief Aleksandr Koldunov, and about 300 other officers lost their posts. And among the people, Red Square began to be nicknamed “Sheremetyevo-3 Airport.”
September 4 — Rust was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally crossing the air border, violating international flight rules, and malicious hooliganism. After spending a total of 432 days in pre-trial detention and prison, on August 3, 1988, he was pardoned by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and expelled from the USSR. Rust himself stated in court that his flight was “a call for peace.”