Mathias Rust Mathias Rust Mathias Rust (born 1 June 1968) is a German aviator known for his illegal landing near Red Square in Moscow on 28 May 1987. An amateur pilot, the teenager flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet air defence and interceptors. The Soviet fighters never received permission to shoot him down, and several times his aeroplane was mistaken for a friendly aircraft. He landed on Vasilevsky Descent next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the Soviet Union. Rust said he wanted to create an "imaginary bridge" to the East, and
Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land chase plane is also visible. There are strong similarities to the novel "Orbit" by Thomas Block (1982), whose "Star Streak" aircraft was jet-and-rocket powered and intended for high-atmospheric flight, only to end up in space. However, there are also important differences. In "Orbit", the failure to shut down engines, requiring entry into space lest it burn up, was deliberate sabotage rather than accident; the aircraft returns without Shuttle assistance "ploughing" the way; and the Shuttle mission sent to bring the passengers oxygen fails to launch at all. "The New York Times" said "Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land" was "...