Red Square Pilot Rust Jailed After Nurse Is Stabbed
Mathias Rust, imprisoned for more than a year after flying a single-engine plane past Soviet air defenses and into Moscow’s Red Square, was jailed Thursday after the stabbing of a young nurse.
Rust, 21, turned himself in more than two hours after fleeing the Hamburg-area hospital where he was working as an orderly under the federal Civilian Service, a pacifist alternative to compulsory military service in West Germany, police said.
According to police, Rust pulled an 18-year-old student nurse into a hospital changing room and, after locking the door behind them, attempted to kiss her.
When she resisted, she was stabbed twice in the stomach, police said.
Rust fled the hospital after the incident shortly after 2 p.m. but was later taken into custody by police. He was not immediately charged.
Rust grabbed international headlines after his dramatic feat on May 28, 1987, when he piloted a rented Cessna across more than 500 miles of heavily defended Soviet territory.
He was sentenced in September, 1987, to serve four years in prison, but was pardoned in August, 1988.
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