In 1987 a German teenager and novice pilot named Matius Roost set out on a two-week flight where he visited several countries in Europe.

What it was remarkable about the flight wasn't the age of the pilot or the distance he traveled.

The reason people still remember it is where he

ended up. Learn more about the highly improbable flight of Matius Roost and

what happened in its aftermath on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. 1987 was a pivotal year in the Cold War.

Ma' Reagan was in the waning years of his presidency,

and the new Soviet General

Secretary was Mikhail Gorbachev, who still didn't have a solid grip on power.

Both sides were still at a very high level of tension and alert, with thousands of

missiles pointed at each other and soldiers on watch

24 hours a day 365 days a year looking to detect the slightest intrusion of

sovereign airspace. This was the state of the world when Matius Roost was 19 years old. He lived in the small town of Weidl in West Germany, which was located on the Elba River just outside the city of Hamburg.

He had taken an interest in flying and had taken flying lessons to become a pilot.

He had logged 50 hours of flying time, which was just enough to get a pilot's license, but not really

enough to be considered an experienced pilot. In May of 1987, Matias told his parents

he wanted to do a tour of Northern European countries

to log more experience towards getting

his professional pilot's license.

It was an ambitious project for someone still in his teens and with only 50 hours of

flight experience, but it wasn't totally crazy either.

He rented a small Cessna aircraft from a local flying club that had the back seats taken out and replaced with fuel tanks to extend the range of the plane.

On May 13th he set out and did exactly what he said he was going to do.

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