Mathias Rust

Mathias Rust is a German aviator known for his flight that ended with a landing near Red Square in Moscow on 28 May 1987. An amateur pilot, the then-teenager flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet air defence and interceptor aircraft. The Soviet fighters did not receive permission to shoot him down, and his aeroplane was mistaken for a friendly aircraft several times. He landed on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the Soviet Union.