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Taking Responsibility
On September 26, 1983, lieutenant colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov assumed his shift where he was responsible for the management of the systems at Serpukhov-15 near Moscow. Mr Petrov’s job was to monitor the early warning systems that would let the Soviet Union know of an incoming US nuclear missile attack. Shortly after assuming his shift, all hell broke loose. The systems first warned of one incoming ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missile), which in a few minutes grew to 5 incoming ICBMs from the US. At the time, Mr Petrov was 44 years old and had served his whole career in the Red Army. His father was a WWII fighter pilot.
Luckily for us all, Mr Petrov decided to wait for further confirmation from ground radar. As the radar systems could not identify any incoming missiles, Mr Petrov decided to not raise an alarm. This sounds very simple when you are not in the heat of the moment. There is less than 15 mins to make the decision, as these incoming missiles would likely target your most critical facilities in an attempt to render counterstrike difficult or impossible. 3 weeks prior to the incident, the Russian air force had downed Korean Air Lines flight 007, a commercial airliner, that had, by accident, strayed into the airspace of the Soviet Union. Needless to say, significant tension existed on either side of…
