Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mathias Rust, a west german teenager who landed a Cessna sports plane in Red Square on May 28, 1987, on trial for invading Soviet air space. Mathias Rust, a west ...

In May 1987, Mathias Rust, an amateur German pilot, flew a rented Cessna aircraft from Finland to Moscow, evading Soviet air defenses and improbably landing on Red Square near the Kremlin. Rust's ...

The story of Mathias Rust's flight from Helsinki to Moscow in 1987 is probably one of the strangest episodes of the Cold War. Twenty-five years ago Rust, a 19-year-old German with about 50 hours of ...

1987: West German teenager Mathias Rust cracks the Iron Curtain with an incredible unauthorized flight from Helsinki to the heart of Moscow — and lives to tell the tale. The Cold War was still in full ...

Mathias Rust, the German who landed his small plane in Moscow's Red Square in 1987, was fined $4,550 Tuesday for stealing a cashmere sweater. Rust, 33, was caught stealing the $81 sweater in a Hamburg ...