Short final for Red Square

March 16, 2005 9:35 PM

Is this photograph of Mathias Rust's plane faked?

This is a question for someone who knows Moscow. This photograph on the website of Mathias Rust, best known as the guy who landed a small plane in Red Square in 1987, shows the aforementioned Cessna about to touch down. Meanwhile, in this Guardian interview, Rust says he landed on a bridge and taxied into Red Square. Does anyone know if the image shows the plane about to land on a bridge in Moscow? It doesn't look like it to me...

posted by tss to grab bag (14 comments total)

Hm. The river is directly to the south of Red Square. I suppose he could have landed on Moskvoretsky Bridge, then taxied north past St Basil's. Personally, I feel that the bridge would have been busier than the square, but maybe things were different in 1987.

The picture depicts the aircraft flying north... I wonder if it was taken as the Cessna attempted to land in Red Square, before circling around and landing on the bridge. ("I approached Red Square three times, trying to find somewhere to land, before discovering a wide bridge nearby. I landed there and taxied into Red Square.").

(All this is guesswork on my part).
posted by Leon at 10:53 PM on March 16, 2005

Isn't that water behind the plane, though? I was at least able to find this picture, which shows (maybe?) the same clocktower (Spaski?) that's on the blurred left-hand of the photo you mentioned, and is shot from the outside, from what looks like one end of a bridge. On this page, in the first photo, you can see the (I think...) the same clock tower, but from the other side of the first, and the caption also mentions that this is the area where "a German flyer landed a small plane".
posted by paul_smatatoes at 11:01 PM on March 16, 2005

Come to think of it, the Cessna in the picture has it's flaps down. Doesn't that imply it's climbing?
posted by Leon at 11:12 PM on March 16, 2005

I was looking at the photo in photoshop, playing with the contrast and brightness, looking for obvious stuff like cloning or similar. Some things stick out as being strange.

1. the driver's side tire looks out-of-round

2. if the sun is behind the aircraft, it doesn't seem like the plane would be that bright. you'd have to use a very fast exposure to prevent total blowout, and so the plane would be the darkest object in the image. IMO- I could be wrong about this, but I know if I used my Canon A85 to take this picture, that's how it would be. Dark behind a (very) bright background. I think for the plane to be lit the way it is would require the sun to be on the opposite side of the plane.
posted by fake at 11:22 PM on March 16, 2005

paul_smatatoes: yes, that's Spaski (Saviour) Tower. If you compare against this picture, and the second line drawing here you'll see that the shot was taken from just in front of St Basil's, looking towards the stretch of Kremlin wall between the tower and Lenin's Tomb. No water there.

fake: it's a gif, I wouldn't be too hopeful about picking up manipulation clues.

Ok, enough guesswork from me. I'll shut up now.
posted by Leon at 11:37 PM on March 16, 2005

Leon, flaps would be down for landing, particularly for a short runway landing, to keep the airspeed and required stopping distance to a minimum.
posted by tomble at 11:42 PM on March 16, 2005

I know nothing about the area. The photo does look a bit Cg at first glance.
I see what your saying fake about the exposure, and how the plane should be darker. That explains the lake of motion blur also, which is the biggest thing for me. The photographer would be lucky to get this shot he wouldve straffed his camera the same speed as the plane - the plane looks so crisp.
The lighting to me looks like its just an overcast day, theres not much directional light. The flare on the wing tip is the sun just peeking through, but it wouldnt be strong enough to blow things out too much and darken the plane.
I think its real but im not sure, I think it was a lucky photo to get the plane so crisp.
posted by phyle at 11:44 PM on March 16, 2005

There are some more pictures of the plane sitting in Red Square in Corbis, if that helps. Search term "Mathias Rust"
posted by Leon at 11:49 PM on March 16, 2005

I asked my husband, who's no expert by any means but has spent some time around aircraft, and he said it's probably landing, because the flaps are fully down and the angle isn't right for takeoff - it looks like it's drifting/wobbling a little on the wind. That doesn't mean it actually did land, though so it could have circled around.

The registration number (D-ECJB) is definitely correct, but also could have been 'shopped. A google for the registration says the plane is a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, which is indeed what the plane in the photo is. There have been three registered D-ECJBs in German, one destroyed in 1976, one preserved (this one), and one that's a Robin Regent registered in 1995.

Sorry, I just had fun doing that, it didn't help much.
posted by tracicle at 11:54 PM on March 16, 2005

That explains the lake of motion blur also, which is the biggest thing for me.

Photogs do this all the time at sporting events. It's not terribly difficult to do once you have the knack for it: just shoot while panning. The length of the blur on the poles bottom-left looks fairly short, so it was a pretty fast exposure.

if the sun is behind the aircraft, it doesn't seem like the plane would be that bright

If the sun were behind the aircraft, but you expose for the aircraft, the aircraft will come out looking just fine, but the sky will be completely blown; since the sky is a large expanse of white, this is a possibility.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:22 AM on March 17, 2005

As one who fiddles about with Photoshop quite a bit, black and white throws up for red flags for me. It's easier to hide bad Photoshop skills by reducing image to black and white.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:41 AM on March 17, 2005

Leon, it may be a gif, but gif is actually no worse than jpeg or tiff for standard 8-bit grayscale. They all have 256 "colors".
posted by zsazsa at 6:02 AM on March 17, 2005

the registration number looks fabricated to me. just my $0.98.
posted by Hankins at 8:58 AM on March 17, 2005

Thanks everyone. It seems certain that the image is in Red Square, and that he's not set up to land on a bridge anytime in the near future (the river is behind him). Perhaps in this image, if it's real, he just buzzed Red Square. Another explanation is that he tried to set up a landing here but decided Red Square was too small, eventually going around and landing on the bridge.

He has the nose up pretty high for his altitude. I can't rightly say what he's doing in the image---it's doesn't quite seem consistent with landing or going around. Either I just don't know what a 172 really looks like during those procedures, or Rust might have been a little preoccupied and sloppy. Which would be understandable, I guess, since you're trying to put down next to the freaking Kremlin.

As for the glint of the sun on the right wingtip, that's also the proper place for one of the strobe lamps, which would be another stroke of serendipitous timing for our photographer.
posted by tss at 9:11 AM on March 17, 2005