In January 1995, a group of Norwegian and American scientists located at Andøya Rocket Range (now Andøya Space) fired a Black Brant rocket which unfortunately triggered the Russian authorities, causing a nuclear crisis not seen since the Cuban missile incident.
Despite the Soviet Union and the Cold War had ended by 1995, the tension between Russia and the West was still not recovered. This was not something the rocket scientists at Andøya Rocket Range thought about that morning in January. They launched a four-stage scientific rocket with NASA-tested military graded boosters to study the Northern Lights. This clear day had ultimate conditions and the rocket was for a change a new type, called Black Brant XII was unfortunately the same size as American submarine-launched nuclear rocket Trident II. The Black Brant was supposed to go up to 1500 meters and then land 330 km northeast of Svalbard. “An officer on duty reported detecting a ballistic missile which started from the Norwegian territory,” recalled MAWS General Anatoly Sokolov. “If it had been launched on an optimal trajectory, its range would have been extended to 3,500 kilometers which, in fact, is the distance to Moscow. The thing is, the start of a civilian missile and a nuclear missile, especially at the initial stage of the flight trajectory, look practically the same.”
The Russian authorities did for some reason not get the notification sent by Andøya Rocket Range via the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Neither did the radar crew from Russian Missile Attack Warning Systems, who often worked exhausted shifts. Russian journalist Oleg Falichev explained: “At times, the officers who perform alert duty are so exhausted at the end of a shift that they don’t feel either their hands or their feet” (Pry 219). The radar crew had no choice but to report what could have been an incoming missile to Moscow, where Russian President Boris Yeltsin got his nuclear launch missile suitcase known as the “Cheget” ready.
Head of Andøya Rocket Range had left the field soon after the rocket launch, and he was sure everything was in order. It took some time to realize it wasn’t, when a bank official called him screaming “What the hell are you doing? Are you aware of what your rocket has done?!”. and rightly so, within the next hours journalists from all over the world phoned them down and landed outside the base, that included the popular American TV-show “60 minutes”. The Russians however, analyzed that the rocket’s trajectory, speed and shape completely corresponded with the Russians’ image of how a Western nuclear attack would begin.And since the radars could not determine exactly where the rocket was launched from, the Russians did not understand that it came from Andøya — the only thing they could determine was that the rocket came from somewhere off the Norwegian coast. The General Staff immediately ordered the nuclear missile to be prepared for launch and activated Kazbek, an automated system that established contact between the Chief of the General Staff, the Minister of Defense and the President through their so-called nuclear suitcases. According to CIA-veteran Peter Pry who at the time worked for the Congress, the system could launch up to 8000 nuclear rockets aimed for USA and other NATO-countries.
Nobody knows exactly what happened in those 20 minutes in Yeltsin’s office, but for some reason he did not push the red button to launch in his Cheget. They might have understood and seen that the Black Brant rocket was on it’s way down to the earth again, and not directed towards them.
The aftermath
Boris Yeltsin on the other hand, claimed to the press the day after that he did use the Cheget: “I have indeed used yesterday for the first time my ‘little black case’ with a button that is always with me,” said Yeltsin. “I immediately contacted the Defense Ministry and all the military commanders that I require and we were following the path of this missile from beginning to end” (Pry 229).
Luckily he didn’t.
