Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Short
A light plane swooped from the Soviet sky without warning and dropped off flowers for President Mikhail Gorbachev at an airport near Turkey before zipping back across the frontier, Soviet media said Thursday.
Izvestia and Tass, quoting the labor newspaper Trud, said that on June 9, a Cessna sneaked into Soviet airspace undetected by flying barely 600 feet above the mountainous southern border with Turkey.
It touched down at the Batumi municipal airport for less than 40 seconds, just long enough to drop off a bouquet of carnations, greetings for Gorbachev and a $20 bill.
"We Germans are very grateful to him," said the note to Gorbachev. The author signed the note, "Hans Schneider."
The Ministry of Defense said air defenses "did not act," Izvestia reported.
"Translating this into simple language, we dare to say this means they failed to notice him," the newspaper concluded. "Thank God, the second Rust had enough tact not to land at a military base!"
Nineteen-year-old Mathias Rust flew his Cessna into Red Square in 1987 and served a prison sentence.
by CNB