This is the fascinating story of how a man saved the world by not following the rules.
On the 26th September 1983, Lieutenant Commander Stanislav Petrov was manning the command centre for a Russian nuclear early-detection system. Barely three weeks earlier the Soviet military had shot down a Korean airliner, so tensions between the superpowers of Russia and USA were at a very heightened level. The Kremlin was anticipating harsh retaliatory measures for this incident and were geared to respond instantaneously if such a situation arose.
Suddenly the system’s nuclear early-warning alarm reported that an intercontinental ballistic misslie had been launched from the United States. Immediately afterwards it notified that four more missiles were following
Sirens howled all around, as Petrov stared at the screen, in front of him, that was blaring LAUNCH in big red letters. The system was telling him that the reliability of this alert was at the ‘highest’ level. There could be no doubt – America had launched a missile.
Barely a minute later the siren went off again. A second missile had been launched. Then a third, and then a forth, and a fifth. His computer changed the alert from LAUNCH warning, to MISSILE STRIKE.
Petrov’s strict duties were to report apparent enemy attacks which would trigger retaliatory nuclear strikes. His training was rigorous and his instructions were clear. He needed to immediately confirm this attack so Russia could respond.
But he didn’t. In that hot-frying-pan high-pressure instant, Petrov determined that a five-missile strike did not constitute the all-out strike from America that he had been trained to expect. In that split second he also determined that the message had passed through the system’s 30 layers of verification too quickly. But his training was to report missile launches and rules were rules – they did not allow for logical thinking. The protocols said, very clearly, that the decision had to be based on computer readouts. And that decision for executing retaliatory rested with the duty officer.
On this day, Petrov called the duty officer and reported a system malfunction … and in the process he likely saved the world from nuclear catastrophe.
All by disobeying the rules and applying his own logic.
We all, on this planet, thank you, Stanislav Petrov.
