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Comment by nephihaha | Hacker News Reader

One guy did use a plane to land in Red Square. Remember him?

He was mentally disturbed, which kinda proves the point. After returning to Germany, he stabbed a woman for rejecting his advances. Later, he was convicted of shoplifting, and a few years after that he was convicted again of selling stolen goods.

Definitely a "character", even if medically sound enough to stand trial.

I didn't know about the stabbing bit. You'd have to be off your head to land a plane next to the Kremlin. He was lucky he wasn't shot down.

Not to live there though, just as a "symbol of peace".

I'm not sure it worked much as a symbol of peace. He got sent to a Soviet prison/interrogation for a while which I'm sure was a laugh a minute.

Yes he was so cool. The plane is still in a museum.

PS: He was dumb as hell too of course, and it was only due to incredible laxness of the air force that he was never shot down.

I'm not sure any countries really shoot down light aircraft unless it's an active war zone. They are not much of a threat and it's also hard to tell if they are there legally or not.

You're more likely to get hassled when you land like the Ethan Guo guy (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04rql923kdo)

Guo must have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic to try and fly to Antarctica unaided as well. Three year ban from Chile isn't long.

This was the soviet union in a very tense time. If he hadn't been shot down he would have been forced down. But yes that would have been a more likely outcome, true.

PS: Don't forget the Soviets knowingly shot and killed an entire airliner full of people. I saw an interview with the fighter pilot later and he didn't even have remorse for what he was doing, "just following orders". What a monster. But that was pretty typical there. Anyone with a backbone questioning orders was already dying in a gulag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust

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