When The Eagle Has Landed In Moscow. Mathias Rust Story #USSR

Mattias Rust's flight to Moscow. What was the Soviet people's reaction to the famous landing in Moscow of Mattias Rust back in 1987? May 28 1987 Mathias Rust landing on the Red Square in Moscow.
0:00 Intro
0:40 The impact of a German teenager landing a plane in Moscow in May 1987 on Soviet people's lives and attitudes.
4:08 Soviet airspace was breached. An unauthorized landing on the Red Square in Moscow led to shock and embarrassment.
7:57 Supersonic jet planes causing loud explosions near a village due to military airfield training.
Recap by Tammy AI
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"Ushanka Show" is a collection of stories about life in the USSR.

[UshankaShow]

Hello, comrades!
My name is Sergei. I was born in the USSR in 1971. Since 1999 I have lived in the USA.
Ushanka Show channel was created to share stories as well as my own memories of everyday life in the USSR.
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[sarjim]

Neither the L-29 or the l_39 could have created sonic booms. The L-29 Delfin was a straight wing trainer with a top speed of 510 mph. The L-39 Albatross was a higher performance version of the Delphin, but it was still straight wing and had a top speed of about 600 mph. Both are far below supersonic speed at any altitude. My guess is you were hearing (and feeling) Mig-25 fighters from Vasylkiv air base. Given the dates, they were mostly likely Mig-25RB reconnaissance bombing versions flying nap of the earth training missions at supersonic speeds. Low level breaking of the sound barrier sounds like bombs being dropped nearby, and the sonic wave can cause some real damage, like breaking the windows out of structures and causing cracks in weak, old homes.

[kyleglenn]

To be completely fair, most countries air defenses are not looking for Cesna Skyhawks.
The exception would be the southern border of the United States and Israel.

[artursberzins]

The production manager at the place I work actually served in the soviet air defence forces at the time of this. Stationed in the St. Petersburg district. He told me he was at the radar screens during this whole situation and that they directed interceptors twice towards the plane but they never made contact as the german was using clouds and terrain to evade detection and they didn't have enough time to direct the MiG's precisely. He said that they had him on screen for a couple of short moments and when he was gone they basically said to themselves that it was nothing. A couple of hours went by and a call from Moscow came that a western aircraft landed in Moscow and came from the north. As you can imagine shit hit the fan at that point 🤣. He also explained that in real life radars are far from the ones we see in movies and such. Theres a lot of things visible on the screen - clouds, larger bird groups etc. That's why they couldn't detect him properly

[paulbalogh]

I remember this “event” very well & reference it frequently but nobody gets my jokes & nobody else remembers this incident. Thank you for bringing this back to todays history.

[pnousiai]

I was born in Finland and lived 2km from Helsinki-Malmi airport back when this happened. We used to spend time in the airport watching planes and dream about pilot license. Well it took 30 years before I got my PPL :) It’s an old airport used only by general aviation (small planes). Helsinki-Vantaa is the main international airport. I remember this flight very well. Airplane disappeared from the radar and ATC couldn’t get contact to him anymore. They suspended the plane did emergency landing and sent search and rescue units look for the wreck. They find patch of oil floating in the sea near city of Porvoo and they tried to find the plane from ocean. It was quite shock to hear it landed to Moscow hours later. I travelled in Soviet Union 1990 and 1991 just before it collapsed. Wonderful memories from those trips. Awesome people with such hospitality. Thanks for great channel. These are my childhood memories too.

[Asptuber]

This is one that has really etched itself into my memory. Our summer cottage is not very far (25-35km?) from the airfield (it's not the main one, but the older smaller one) in Helsinki from where Rust took off.

I was there this day, and was listening to the radio. I remember the news about a small plane from there going missing, and I listened up because they said it had disappeared just a few kms from where I was - you know how it is when suddenly a very local place name is mentioned on the news, you pay attention.

I think there was one further mention of the search for the missing plane, and then that news bulletin that was too good to be true: first the sensation of a small plane landing in the middle of Moscow, and then an update about the fruitless search for the presumed crashed Cessna. Without any connection between these news items. I vividly remember putting the too things together, chatting with my grandmother about it. Then half an hour later the stories where combined into one.

I didn't know about it being Border Force Day in the Soviet Union that day, that's really too much.
Can't remember if anything happened to border force types here in Finland (probably not), but I do remember that there was lots of talk about how Rust must have flown really low, like tree-top low, to evade radar. Which is why they initially thought he had crashed in the sea close to our cottage.

[buffdelcampo]

I lived in southern California not very far from Edwards Air Force Base. I heard sonic booms almost every day in the late 50s and early 60s. The space shuttle went overhead once in the 90s and I heard the old familiar double ba-boom. I really miss that sound. I don't understand why people dislike it.

[jeffbreezee]

I was a 21 years old Marine corporal when Mathias Rust pulled his stunt. We were still training for World War 3, and when this happened we thought, well maybe this will start the end of the Cold War.

[bodyloverz]

Thanks for answering my question and doing a video on this!

[marcatteberry]

I had just finished my W.German US Army enlistment in March that year. I remember this.. It was GREAT!
Play 99 luftballons in background....

[shawngroover]

When the young man landed in Red Square, he was greeted with government agents who had, calm, relaxing and peaceful voices, just like our Host, Sergei.

[Karnegis]

I grew up near Beal Air Force Base which was the home to the SR-71 spy plane. They were not supposed to go over the speed of sound over the main land US but every once it a while we got a sonic boom that rattled the house.

My parents neighbor was a Colonel at Beal AFB and he told me back during the Cold War they hacked into the feed of a Soviet tracking satellite. They purposely flew two SR-71’s head on to each other at different altitudes. One plane was going out on a mission while one was coming back both were going three times the speed of sound. He said the satellite couldn’t calculate the closing speed of the planes causing it to error out.

[shaunw]

Fascinating story, I'm old enough to remember but hadn't heard of . Cheers Comrade Sergei ✌️😉🇬🇧

[gwcg]

I was in Germany when this happened and knew [from expectations] that heads would roll [and thought maybe literally] but did no know about the purging of leaders in the way. Interesting, very interesting [thank you Arte Johnson]

[briancasey]

The "Roost" story was definitely talked about when I was in Russia. I didn't realize that he was only a teenager. I believe that if he would have pulled that stunt even 5 years before this actually took place, the Soviets would have killed him. That kid was damn lucky!

[lyricaltraveller]

The L29 Delphin was a trainer that was incapable of super sonic speeds. So the sonic booms must have come from another aircraft from that base. I do know that MiG 29s were stationed in those areas at that time. It must have been fascinating to watch any of these planes fly so low over your head. That's why I love going to the airshow in Dayton, Ohio.

[mask]

Most likely, it was a foreign special operation. 2 fighters could not catch up with him, as they were overtaking him. flew over the Minsk highway in some places 10 m altitude. Then he landed in the Smolensk region on arable land, the tractor driver filled him with fuel, as he was at zero. Finally. Landing - Red Square. Question. Where does the tractor driver get aviation fuel?
All data is from Radio Voice of America.

[opl]

Using landmarks to navigate is called "pilotage" in English. The Russians probably have their own word for it, have no idea. It would make sense he would do it VFR, I doubt there were any published procedures for making an IFR approach to Red Square.

[DianaDeLuna]

I think I still have clipped newspaper & magazine articles of this Cessna incident! I was a weird teenager who collected as many news, culture, & tidbits as I could about the USSR.