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Some russophobes like to say that the cessna landing on the red square is proof that russian(soviet) air defence was crap(which isnt the case of course) but does anyone know more about the circumstances of this incident? Did soviet radars not detect it because the cessna was flying too low, was air defence very sparse in which the aircraft was flying or did soviet authorities just allow the plane to land?
+2
Zivo
KomissarBojanchev
6 posters
On the Matias Rust cessna landing incident
KomissarBojanchev- Posts : 1429
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Location : Varna, Bulgaria
Zivo- Posts : 1487
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Location : U.S.A.
Not sure, but it sounds like the soviets figured he was a amateur pilot who wandered off course.
TR1- Posts : 5435
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Join date : 2011-12-06
Soviet planes buzzed him, tracked him, and were all around the area.
AFter bad publicity with Korea 007 shootdown, order was taken to let him proceed.
How that got molded into "CESSNA BROUGHT DOWN THE USSR!"....well...I can't tell you
AFter bad publicity with Korea 007 shootdown, order was taken to let him proceed.
How that got molded into "CESSNA BROUGHT DOWN THE USSR!"....well...I can't tell you
AlfaT8- Posts : 2488
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Join date : 2013-02-02
That explains a lot, i still remember those old documentaries that mentioned that a "CESSNA PENETRATED/BYPASSED THE USSR AIR DEFENSE!!"TR1 wrote:Soviet planes buzzed him, tracked him, and were all around the area.
AFter bad publicity with Korea 007 shootdown, order was taken to let him proceed.
How that got molded into "CESSNA BROUGHT DOWN THE USSR!"....well...I can't tell you
GarryB- Posts : 40537
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Location : New Zealand
He was of course tracked during his entire flight, the problem for the PVO was that he was in a cessna, which is too slow for a Mig-23 to fly beside and communicate that he should change course or land, so the PVO handed the case over to the districts Army Aviation unit who sent up Hinds. The problem there of course was that a Hind has no radar and are not that much faster than a Cessna so in the confusion of trying to find and get close to the "target" the "target" landed in Red Square.
I remember reading about a balloon race across Europe in the 1990s where a racing balloon entered I think Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by a Hind. Air Forces Monthly magazine wrote a scathing article about the ruthless AF shooting down an unarmed civilian balloon and criticised them destroying it in a hail of gun fire. The following month they published a letter from the Hungarian pilot who cleared up a few things... the balloon was drifting into a busy area for air traffic and he could see no signs of life from it. He did fire a burst of rounds because the gatling gun on the Hind can't fire single shots, and said with the first burst the balloon disintegrated and fell immediately. There were no indications there was anyone on board and he was shocked to find it was manned.
As mentioned above after the whining and moaning about the shoot down of KAL007 over Kamchatka (which at the time was believed to be a US spy plane on a military mission) they were hardly going to shoot down a cessna.
The problem is that most westerners think they are mad men that shot down everything that entered their air space, which is rather the picture the west liked to portray, but in reality the KAL007 was believed to be a military aircraft that had over flown several secret military areas... the Soviet shooting it down would be like the US shooting down a Soviet Spy plane that was flying over Area 51 that refused to land.
If they had known it was a civilian airliner they would not have shot it down... just like they could tell the Cessna Rust was flying was not military and did not even consider shooting it down.
I remember reading about a balloon race across Europe in the 1990s where a racing balloon entered I think Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by a Hind. Air Forces Monthly magazine wrote a scathing article about the ruthless AF shooting down an unarmed civilian balloon and criticised them destroying it in a hail of gun fire. The following month they published a letter from the Hungarian pilot who cleared up a few things... the balloon was drifting into a busy area for air traffic and he could see no signs of life from it. He did fire a burst of rounds because the gatling gun on the Hind can't fire single shots, and said with the first burst the balloon disintegrated and fell immediately. There were no indications there was anyone on board and he was shocked to find it was manned.
As mentioned above after the whining and moaning about the shoot down of KAL007 over Kamchatka (which at the time was believed to be a US spy plane on a military mission) they were hardly going to shoot down a cessna.
The problem is that most westerners think they are mad men that shot down everything that entered their air space, which is rather the picture the west liked to portray, but in reality the KAL007 was believed to be a military aircraft that had over flown several secret military areas... the Soviet shooting it down would be like the US shooting down a Soviet Spy plane that was flying over Area 51 that refused to land.
If they had known it was a civilian airliner they would not have shot it down... just like they could tell the Cessna Rust was flying was not military and did not even consider shooting it down.
medo- Posts : 4343
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The same could be said for NATO air defense, when pilotless Mig-23 crash in Belgium in 1989, when it run out of fuel. It fly through West Germany, where was large NATO force.