In 1987, a politically minded German teenager decided to throw caution to the wind and fly a rented Cessna 172 directly into the heart of the Soviet capital. Moscow, at that time, was likely the most heavily defended airspace on the planet. Despite the odds, he survived the ordeal and helped bring about the largest turnover of Soviet military officers in fifty years, giving Gorbachev the chance he needed to remove large swaths of his opposition. From SANDBOX.