Pilot Says It With Flowers; Soviets Again Get No Scent

As flower deliveries go, it was spectacular.

A light plane swooped from the Soviet sky without warning and dropped off flowers for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at an airport near Turkey before zipping back across the frontier, Soviet media said Thursday.

Clearly, at least some Soviets have gained a sense of humor since a 19-year-old West German youth buzzed the Kremlin and landed his Cessna on Red Square before startled KGB guards in May, 1988.

That young man, Mathias Rust, spent 14 months in a Soviet prison after the photo of his plane in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral made front pages around the world. Soviet authorities fired their defense minister and air defense chief after Rust flew from Finland to a landing in Moscow undetected.

The latest incident was reported in a mocking article in Izvestia under the headline, “Rust Number Two?”

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!”

Trud said that border guards and air defenders failed to coordinate their actions. It said helicopters should have pursued the plane.

“After all, he is still a violator, even though he has an excellent sense of humor,” Trud said.