Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov ( ; 7 September 1939 – 19 May 2017 ) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who became known as " the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war " for his role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident . On 26 September 1983 , three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 , Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States , followed by up to five more . Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm , and his decision to disobey orders , against Soviet military protocol , is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war . Investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Stanislav Petrov