Rust was an introverted nerd, thats why he flew naively to Russia. It was just luck that he wasn't shot down. Strangely, his journey was though beneficial for P

Rust was an introverted nerd, thats why he flew naively to Russia. It was just luck that he wasn't shot down. Strangely, his journey was though beneficial for Perestroika, as Gorbachev used the embarrassing incident to clean house and retire opponents in the military. > He received only two and a half years in prison for that. The woman he stabbed nearly died. What the fuck. I looked it up: At that time public opinion pivoted against him. His parents had sold his story to a magazine for a larger sum, which was seen as greedy and improper journalism, and he himself made very naive/weird statements in interviews (e.g. his claim about the russians drugging him). The media wanted him to be a hero and an attractive daredevil pilot, but he turned out to just be a boring weirdo. A socially inept and awkward 20 year old. Regarding the knife attack he claimed that the girl rebuked his advances by calling him (I am paraphrasing the German here) "a loser, that he never will succeed and will ever be a loser, and the russia thing was just a stunt to make himself important". Rust said something snapped in him. A psychological examination saw this as triggering his neurosis. The court followed this and I guess judged the media stress as mitigating factor for his affect action. (The girl denied saying that to him and indeed only survived because the stabbing was in a hospital.) After prison Rust had an odd life. He was in Asia and abroad, he had two failed marriages there, he claimed to have been a professional Poker player and having won a small fortune with poker, which allowed him to be financially independent, but then he was caught trying to steal an expensive cashmere pullover in a store, something about check fraud, something about a Yoga school he wanted to open... http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/kreml-flieger-mathias-rust-a-947580.html http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/kreml-flieger-mathias-rust-...