Kremlin Caper: Mathias Rust's Landing on Red Square
05:18
This browser does not support the video element.
Politics
May 25, 2012
On May 28, 1987, Mathias Rust made headlines when he piloted a rented Cessna across the Iron Curtain, landing it in Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The West German teenager regarded his unauthorized landing as a peace mission.
Advertisement
The spectacle of a teenager outwitting the Soviet military provided Mikhail Gorbachev, then head of state of the Soviet Union, with a pretext to remove hardline opponents in the armed forces and advance the cause of reform.
