Venticinque anni fa, al culmine della guerra fredda, 19 anni, Mathias Rust volato un audace 'missione di pace' da Helsinki a Mosca. Ha eluso le difese aeree sovietiche dell'Unione per 500 miglia prima di ottenere il suo monomotore Cessna sulla Piazza Rossa di Mosca il 28 maggio 1987. E 'stato accolto dagli spettatori stupefatti e amichevole, ma è stato arrestato dal KGB e poi servito 14 mesi in prigione. In questo film spiega le sue stesse parole perché l'ha fatto
When Mathias Rust landed his white Cessna on Red Square on May 28, 1987, he had placed all his hopes for world peace in Mikhail Gorbachev.
The 19-year-old amateur pilot from a well-to-do Hamburg suburb was
aware of the risk he took by flying into Soviet airspace, then among
the world's most tightly guarded.
"I thought that if Gorbachev won't allow it, they would punish me," Rust, who is 44 today, told Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published Thursday.
Rust wanted to end the Cold War by stunning the world with his daring flight right into the heart of the Soviet empire.
He started his six-hour flight in Helsinki and was extremely lucky
not to be shot down by MiG-23 fighter pilots, who were looking for him
after he appeared on Soviet radar screens.
He passed over an Air Force training area in the Pskov region
and flew through Moscow's formidable air defense ring, which was
switched off for maintenance.
Rust maintains that he did not hide from radar and constantly kept
at 600 meters altitude. Experts say Rust was spared because
the country's leadership was reluctant to attack civilian aircraft after
Soviet fighter jets shot down a Korean jumbo jet in 1983, killing 269
people.
Rust said he was ill-prepared for the landing because he had only a rudimentary knowledge of the city's geography.
"I had to circle many times before I found Red Square," he said,
adding that he managed to do so only thanks to the landmark Hotel
Rossiya, which was torn down in 2006.
He managed to bring the plane down safely on Moskvoretsky Bridge
on the other side of St. Basil's Cathedral only because electricity
cables that usually span it had been taken down.
Rust was sentenced to four years in a labor camp. He was released in 1988 after spending 14 months in Lefortovo Prison.
Since then, Rust has had a patchwork career, including stints as
a poker player and freelance peace mediator in the Middle East. He plans
to open a yoga school in Hamburg.
He says now that he regrets his stunt.
"I would not do it again. … It was irresponsible," he told German magazine Stern in an article this month.
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