Rust, Matthias

Born in the family of Karl-Heinz Rust (born 1937), who worked as an electrical engineer at AEG , and Monica Rust (born 1941). From the age of 5, when his father first brought him to the airport, he dreamed of flying. In 1986, he received a pilot’s license at the Hamburg flying club ^[1] .

Rust plane at the German Technical Museum

Flight route

On May 13, 1987, Mathias Rust took off from Uetersen airport ( German: Uetersen ) on a Cessna-172 Skyhawk aircraft (tail number D-ECJB ), rented by him in his flying club and modified by installing additional fuel tanks instead of the second row of seats. After five hours of flight over the North Sea, he landed at one of the Shetland Islands airfields. The next day, Rust flew to Vagar ( Faroe Islands ) ^[2] .

On May 15, Rust made a flight to Iceland ( Keflavik Airport), where he visited Hovdi , the venue for the meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in October 1986.

... I felt that I came into contact with the spirit of this place. I was filled with emotions and disappointment from the failure of the summit, from the fact that I could not be here last fall. It motivated me to continue.

Original text

... I felt I got in touch with the spirit of the place. I was so emotionally involved then and was so disappointed with the failure of the summit and my failure to get there the previous autumn. So it gave me motivation to continue.

- “Air & Space Magazine” ^[2]

On May 22, Rust flew to Bergen ( Norway ), from there on May 25 to Helsinki ( Finland ). Now, having covered almost 2,600 miles from Hamburg, he felt that he had enough skills to achieve the main goal. However, doubts about their ability to withstand nervous tension did not leave. He constantly hesitated: “Yes, I have to do this” - “No, this is crazy.”

On the morning of May 28, he arrived at the airport, refueled the Cessna, checked the weather, and submitted to the dispatch service a plan for a two-hour flight to the southwest, to Stockholm . According to him, it was an alternative route in case he did get scared ^[2] .

At 13:21 ( Moscow time ) Rust took off. After 20 minutes, in the area of ​​the city of , his plane left the airport control zone. Rust turned off all communications, abruptly changed course and level, flew along the Baltic Sea coastline to a predetermined point at an altitude of about 200 m, which was located exactly on the airway connecting Helsinki and Moscow, and disappeared from the radar screens at approximately 2 p.m. Stations located near Sipoo . Dispatchers launched a search and rescue operation. 40 km from the coastline of the Gulf of Finland, rescuers discovered an oil slick and suggested that the plane crashed; to reliably verify this, additional forces were involved. Rust at a low altitude under a busy airway crossed the Soviet border near the city of Kohtla-Järve and headed for Moscow ^[3] . Later, he will be presented with an invoice for a false rescue alarm worth more than one hundred thousand dollars ^[4] .

The weather was cloudy, with clearings, with the lower edge of the clouds 400-600 m. Rust was guided by a magnetic compass and pre-planned objects - Lake Peipsi , Lake Ilmen , Lake Seliger , railway Rzhev - Moscow . On-duty air defense units found him at 14:10. Three anti-aircraft missile battalions were put on alert, observed the “target 8255”, but did not receive destruction commands. The airborne duty units of the MiG-21 , MiG-23 rose from the airfields of Tapa , Andreapol , Khotilovo and Bezhetsk . He was visually found in the vicinity of Gdov - at 2:29 p.m. the MiG-23MLD pilot senior lieutenant A. Puchnin ( 656th IAP ) reported that “in the gap in the clouds he was observing a white Yak-12 type aircraft with a dark stripe along the fuselage”. Rust's plane was moving at low altitude and with a low flight speed, which made it impossible to constantly escort him with high-speed fighters. Having made several flights over it and not having received a clear command on the impact, the pilots simply returned to the airfield ^{[4] [5]} .

According to Marshal of the Soviet Union D.T. Yazov , the air defense forces conducted a "Cessna" to Moscow and did not stop the flight, because after the incident with the South Korean airliner civilian aircraft were ordered not to shoot down ^[6] . In addition, in accordance with the Chicago Convention , to which the USSR was a party, if airspace was violated by light - engine sports aircraft, they could only be forced to land, which is much more difficult than to destroy ^[5] :

Contracting States recognize that each State should refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civilian aircraft in flight, and that in the event of interception, the lives of persons on board and the safety of the aircraft should not be endangered.

- Article 3 bis, paragraph "a" of the Chicago Convention, unanimously added at the 25th session of the ICAO Assembly on May 10, 1984 ^[7] .

Rust was in the Pskov region when at 15:00, in accordance with the schedule, the code number of the “ friend or foe ” system changed. There were training flights of one of the aviation regiments, and an inexperienced young lieutenant of the duty shift of the CP air defense assigned the sign "his" to all objects in the air. About an hour later, Rust flew over Seliger and fell into the zone of responsibility of another compound, but now he was mistaken for a participant in a search and rescue operation at the site of the accident of the Air Force plane 40 km west of Torzhok the day before. ^{[ which one? ]} . When the military realized that they were observing the intruder, he was already entering the zone of the Moscow Air Defense District . There and to the Central command post of air defense reported on the Soviet light-engine aircraft flying without application - such air objects were observed quite often. The operational duty center of the Central Control Commission, Major General S. I. Melnikov, and the acting chief of the Main Air Defense Headquarters, Lieutenant General E. L. Timokhin, hoped that they would deal with him in the Moscow District themselves and, having no characteristics of the offender, did not report to the Air Defense Commander Marshal A I. Koldunov . At the KP of the Moscow District they did not attach importance to the “simple violator of the flight regime” ^{[4] [8]} .

The commander of the Soviet missile and anti-space defense forces (in 1986-1991) V. M. Kraskovsky many years later expressed the opinion that Marshal Koldunov “would not have stopped before taking the most extreme measures” if he had learned about the incident in a timely manner ^[8] .

At 18:30, Rust flew up to Moscow. Here the weather was calm and slightly cloudy. He intended to land directly in the Kremlin or on Red Square , but this was not possible. After doing a few laps, he noticed the cycle of traffic lights on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge . Having descended over Bolshaya Ordynka Street , the plane, almost touching the roofs of the cars, sat on the bridge and coasted down to St. Basil’s Cathedral ^[4] . At 19:10, Rust left the plane and began to sign autographs . About an hour later he was arrested ^{[9] [10]} .

Consequences

On September 2, 1987, the trial began ^[11] . Rust was accused of hooliganism (his landing, according to the court, threatened the lives of people on the square), violation of aviation laws and illegal crossing of the Soviet border. Rust said in court that his flight was a "call for peace." On September 4, Rust was sentenced to four years in prison ^[10] . On August 3, 1988, he returned to Germany after Andrei Gromyko , then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR , signed a decree on amnesty. Rust spent a total of 432 days in pretrial detention and prison.

In Soviet newspapers, his flight was presented as a failure of the country's air defense system ^[12] . However, it was not taken into account that this system was intended to repel an attack that could inflict damage on a national scale. The task of counteracting air hooligans on light motor vehicles flying at low altitudes in peacetime is impossible for the economy of a state with a border length of more than 60 thousand km ^[4] .

Mikhail Gorbachev used the incident for major personnel changes in the Armed Forces ^[12] . Already on May 30, they were dismissed by Minister of Defense Sergei Sokolov and Air Defense Commander Alexander Koldunov , both of whom were political opponents of Gorbachev. Instead, he appointed people who supported the course of his reforms : Dmitry Yazov was appointed the new Minister of Defense (who, after 4 years, became an active participant in the GKChP speech ).

By June 10, 34 officers and generals were held accountable. ^[4] The commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Colonel General Vladimir Tsarkov , who was appointed to the post a few days before the event, was reprimanded , but retained the post ^{[13] [14]} .

One of the most cited assessments of the consequences of a Rust flight for the Soviet Armed Forces was given by William Odom, an American national security specialist: “After the Rust flight, a radical change was made in the Soviet army comparable to the cleansing of the armed forces organized by Stalin in 1937 ” ^[12] . Almost the entire leadership of the Ministry of Defense was replaced, including the commanders of military districts ^[4] .

Rust motives

The world media put forward different versions of the reasons for the flight of Rust, among them - the desire to win a bet , to impress the girl.

Many representatives of the Soviet Armed Forces considered the flight a share of foreign intelligence services .

Army General Peter Deinekin , Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-1997 ^{[12] [15]} :

There is no doubt that the flight of Rust was a carefully planned provocation of the Western intelligence services. And it was carried out with the consent and with the knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the Soviet Union. The fact that immediately after the landing of Rust on Red Square an unprecedented purge of the upper and middle generals began to suggest the idea of ​​internal betrayal . It was as if they were specially waiting for a suitable occasion ... They could shoot down the Cessna as many times as needed.

Igor Morozov , former colonel of the KGB of the USSR :

It was a brilliant operation developed by Western intelligence agencies. After 20 years, it becomes obvious that the secret services, and this is no longer a secret, were able to attract people from the inner circle of Mikhail Gorbachev to the implementation of the grandiose project, and they calculated the reaction of the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee with absolute accuracy. But the goal was one - to decapitate the Armed Forces of the USSR, significantly weaken the position of the Soviet Union in the international arena ^[12] .

The commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR Air Defense Rasim Akchurin ^[12] :

The action was not at all harmless, but planned to defame our army ... The commander-in-chief Alexander Ivanovich Koldunov was shot - an amazing person, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, the commander was removed from us - I don’t know his fate and I don’t even remember the name. At that time, a lot of people were “swept” in the air defense, and the operational duty officer was even condemned ... They removed the excellent Minister of Defense Sergey Leonidovich Sokolov and replaced him with Dmitry Yazov.

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov ^[15] :

Three weeks before Rust arrived, Defense Minister Marshal Sokolov reported to Gorbachev how the air defense system works. When the marshal returned from the report, it turned out that top-secret documents remained with Gorbachev on the table. The next morning I rushed to the Kremlin: "Mikhail Sergeyevich, the minister was on your report and forgot the map." - "I don’t remember where she is, look for it yourself ..." Gorbachev did not return the card ... "

Colonel Oleg Zvyagintsev, former deputy commander of the Air Defense Corps ^[15] :

When the showdown began, I remembered that for three days in our north of the country the radar field did not change. Usually it changes every day. And here - three days! Air defense officers spotted Rust instantly as soon as he crossed the border. But the reports recorded: "a flock of birds" ...

In 2003, the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, quoting an unnamed television channel, wrote that Sergei Melnikov, the duty general at the central air defense center on May 28, 1987, referred to the former KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov , who allegedly admitted that he was preparing this operation on the instructions of Gorbachev ^{[ 16]} .

In 2011, Andrei Karaulov in his television program “ Moment of Truth ” showed the recognition of air defense general Sergei Melnikov about Kryuchkov’s participation in the development of a plan for the flight of Rust ^[17] ; Karaulov told ^[15] :

When Rust landed in Moscow, his tanks were full. He was refueled. Under Staraya Russa , right on the road. I ask Rust: “Do you want me to show you a photo of how your plane is being refueled?” Rust did not answer, only his eyes ran around ...

In 2007, after 20 years, Rust himself explained his motives as follows:

Then I was full of hope. I believed that anything is possible. My flight was supposed to create an imaginary bridge between East and West ^[9] .

In 2012, he declared his flight irresponsible ^[18] :

I was then 19. My ardor and my political convictions suggested to me that landing on Red Square was the only option for me ... Now I look at what has happened in a completely different way. I definitely would not repeat this and would call my plans of that time unrealizable. It was an irresponsible act.

Two circumstances remain unlit in the press:

• how an oil slick appeared in the Gulf of Finland, due to which a search operation was carried out;
• what is the reason and when the symbolic image of the atomic bomb resembling the “ Fat Man ” appeared on the vertical stabilizer of the Rust plane — when it took off in Helsinki, this image was not ^[19] , but it is clearly visible in the pictures from Vasilievsky descent (see photo ).

After returning to Germany, Rust was deprived of the pilot's license ^[9] .

In November 1989, Rust, who served in the alternative hospital in Riessen , stabbed a nurse for refusing to go on a date with him. In 1991, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but was released after only 15 months. Traded shoes, donating money to an orphanage ^[9] .

In 1994, Rust visited Russia again, unsuccessfully trying to meet Gorbachev for 3 weeks ^[9] .

For a long time, Rust lived in Trinidad . In 1997, he converted to Hinduism and married an Indian girl named Gita, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant from Bombay . After the marriage, Rust returned with his wife to Germany ^[20] .

In April 2001, Rust appeared in court on charges of stealing a cashmere sweater in a department store ^[20] . Sentenced to a fine of 10,000 German marks, which was subsequently reduced to 600 marks.

He made a living by playing poker ^[21] , as well as, as he said, said in 2012, teaching yoga and analytics for an investment bank ^[22] .

Rust's memoirs were published in 2012, on the 25th anniversary of his famous flight ^[23] .

Until 2008, the aircraft of Rust was owned by a wealthy Japanese businessman (it is not known how the aircraft was in his possession). He kept the “Cessna” in the hangar, hoping that over time its value will increase ^{[24] [25]} . In 2008, the aircraft was bought by the German Technical Museum , where it is currently on display in the lobby ^{[26] [27]} .

• Rust was not the first foreign intruder aircraft to land in Moscow. As Lieutenant General P. Sudoplatov recalled, on May 15, 1941, German Junkers 52 invaded Soviet airspace and, flying unnoticed on the Bialystok – Minsk – Smolensk route, landed at the central airfield in Moscow near Dynamo Stadium ^[28] .
• On July 4, 1989, the uncontrolled MiG-23M of the USSR Air Force, after the pilot left the emergency vehicle, flew about 900 km over the territory of Poland, the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and fell on a residential building near the Franco-Belgian border. Killed the eighteen-year-old son of a local farmer. The Soviet government paid his family almost 700 thousand dollars in compensation, but this incident did not have such personnel consequences as after the “breakthrough” of the country's air defense system in the form of a flight through several regions of the USSR and landing of a Rust sports plane in Moscow ^[29] .
• On September 12, 1994 , the Cessna plane crashed from a collision with a tree while trying to land near the residence of the US president in Washington . died.
• In 2015, Russian journalist Aleksey Egorov tried to check if he could get around the air defense system in the Kaliningrad region. Together with an extreme pilot, he took off on a similar plane, but was immediately intercepted by a Mi-24 helicopter ^[30] .

• In the same year, Igor Irtenyev wrote about the flight of Rust poem "Eroplan flies German ..." ^[31] . On these verses was written the song "Dedication to the pilot Rust" of the group " Architects ".
• Yevgeny Yevtushenko noted his impressions of these events in the poem “Russian Koalas”: “ ... The Kremlin didn’t knock down a sassy aero-gun - it’s all because he was splashed by sleepwalking koalas from air defense .”
• Julius Kim described him as a Quadrille for Mathias Rust as a reckless and reckless guy ^[32] .
• The Lesopoval group performed a song called Minin and Pozharsky (music by Sergey Korzhukov, lyrics by Mikhail Tanich), in which Matias Rust is the main character.
• The group " Zero " recorded a song called "I am an airplane."
• The Modern Trouble group in 1987 recorded the song “Fly to Moscow”.
• Имя Матиаса Руста упоминалось в песне «Ветер-шалун» (автор В. Шахрин) группы « Чайф » — « …и как Матиас Руст, нарушал бы границы… ».
• В «Песне без названия» Александра Градского есть слова: « … И вписался Руст искусно в ложе площади прокрустово. Да что нам Русты и „прокрусты“ и прохвосты всех мастей! » ^[33] .
• В фильме Леонида Гайдая « На Дерибасовской хорошая погода, или На Брайтон-Бич опять идут дожди » (1992) в начале фильма идёт эпизод с приземлением героя фильма на Красной площади, являющийся аллюзией на приземление Руста.
• После приземления Руста Красную площадь в народе некоторое время называли « Шереметьево -3». Среди военнослужащих авиационно-истребительных полков войск ПВО страны ходил анекдот о двух лейтенантах-лётчиках, один из которых попросил на Красной площади у другого закурить; тот ответил: «На аэродроме не курят!» ^{[~ 1]} . Также по стране ходил анекдот , что у фонтана возле Большого театра выставлен пост милиции — на случай, если всплывёт американская подводная лодка ^[34] .

• Список инцидентов с участием иностранной авиации над СССР (1946—1991)
• « Плюшевый десант »

Sources

• Ed Stuhler. Der Kreml-Flieger: Mathias Rust und die Folgen eines Abenteuers (нем.) . — Ch. Links Verlag, 2012. — 192 с. — ISBN 978-3-86153-666-6 .
• Moscow touchdown shakes the Kremlin . // Flight International : Official organ of the Royal Aero Club. — Sutton, Surrey: Reed Business Publishing Ltd, 6 June 1987. — Vol. 131 — No. 4065 — P. 2 — ISSN 0015-3710.
• Barringer, Felicity . Lone West German Flied Unhidered to the Kremlin . // New York Times : Daily Newspaper. — NY: New York Times, Inc., May 30, 1987. — P. 1 — ISSN 0362-4331.

• Право на полёт
• День прилета или чего мы не знали о Матиасе Русте // «Коммерсантъ: Огонёк» (15 сентября 2002)
• «Матиас Руст. Скандальный полет» (видео) // Пятый канал (3 августа 2010)
• Excerpts of video capturing Rust's flying and landing in Moscow (англ.) (видео) // YouTube
• Руст, Матиас (англ.) на сайте Internet Movie Database
• Interview: What happened next? (англ.) // The Guardian (27 октября 2002)
• TV Interview 2007 (англ.) (видео) // YouTube (28 мая 2007)
• Guardian: interview with Mathias Rust
• Where Are They Now?: Mathias Rust (англ.) // weht.net
• The Cessna, registration number D-ECJB on display Deutsches Technikmuseum, Berlin // JetPhotos.Net
• A Dubious Diplomat // Washington Post (27 May 2007)
• Mathias Rust, fly to the heart of USSR , by Jose Antonio Lozano (исп.)
• BBC article including original video of the landing. (англ.)
• Mathias Rust Interview from the Love + Radio podcast (англ.)
• Christoph Gunkel: Kreml-Flieger Mathias Rust: Der Absturz (нем.) // Spiegel-Online (21 мая 2012)