it happened on the day which was back then (and still is) the official celebration day of the Soviet Union (now Russian) border and airspace defense forces.
Everybody who knows Russia and its military easily understands why nobody was able to take a decision, why the plane was several times lost from the radars, mistaken for something else, the target tracking codes assigned inside the airspace defense system to the plane matched and mismatched with other airborne targets / objects in the airspace.... It is a very good luck (which God sends to drunks and children :) that that day in that chaos no other planes were shot down ... :) (google for "Ukrainian missile Sibur Tu-154 2001" - how it happens when luck is missing)
He flew a Cessna 172, which is an all-aluminum four-seat aircraft. It's not fabric-covered as the article describes, nor is it the size of a Ford Fiesta. And 172's cruise speed is ~120 kph, which is considerably faster than a Fiesta as well.
This is actually not quite true, unless you have a very long downhill slope or a Fiesta at the upper end of the bell curve - I was driving a Ford Fiesta in Germany at the very same time Rust was flying his plane to Red Square. Top speed, and I mean, pedal to the metal on a straight stretch of empty Autobahn, was maybe 180 kph. At 200 kph I'm pretty sure you'd get something like the opening sequence of Serenity. That last 20 kph is like the sound barrier on those things.
My Fiesta was special, though; I had broken a key off in the starter switch, so I had to remove the switch entirely (fortunately the theft-proof bolts had vibrated loose, probably at 180 kph). Crossing the Swiss border once while starting the engine with a screwdriver caused a very, very unamused reaction.
The outside rearview mirror had also rusted off. I was stopped by the Polizei once and he sternly informed me that I needed a rearview mirror - I told him I did: it was in the back seat. He laughed, but said that unless it was mounted on the car, the car didn't conform with its definition. (No, really, that's the way German law works.) I promised him I'd buy a new one the next day, and he waved me on. And I did, too.
All in all, the adventures of a redneck in Europe can be fun to recount.
And later in life he stabbed a nurse, did some shoplifting and (IIRC) is now a professional poker player. It's hard when you reach your zenith that early.
You read too much into that. Here's a bit of an inside view.
My father was a Soviet tank forces officer at the time. When they were given a brief of the incident in the morning, he remarked "this surely must be zampolit at work" (a deputy political officer, CPSU hand in the army). Dad got reprimanded for that right in place, by, well, another zampolit.
So some days after, the pilot was identified as deputy political officer to the airforce division commander. He forgot to turn out afterburn after the take off, misread that as engine failure, shat his pants and ejected.
Reminds me of war nerds writing about the use of such planes against "advanced" airforces in Africa by a Swedish guy. And that simpsons episode where Bob steals the write flyer.
"Bogey is too slow to intercept, permission to get out and walk?"
This was the Biafran civil war. The Swedish guy smuggled the planes in by buying them for some (IIRC) Moroccan flight school. They were mostly used for bombing runs.
I think the reason he was able to succeed was because he was using such a small, non-militaristic plane. I'm sure an invasion force would've been met with much stiffer resistance.
Everybody who knows Russia and its military easily understands why nobody was able to take a decision, why the plane was several times lost from the radars, mistaken for something else, the target tracking codes assigned inside the airspace defense system to the plane matched and mismatched with other airborne targets / objects in the airspace.... It is a very good luck (which God sends to drunks and children :) that that day in that chaos no other planes were shot down ... :) (google for "Ukrainian missile Sibur Tu-154 2001" - how it happens when luck is missing)