Deadly Software Bugs
The Patriot missile system protected military forces and civilians against Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War. On February 25, 1991, a numerical rounding bug caused it to ignore incoming Scud missiles leading to the deaths of 28 soldiers and injuring many more.
During the Cold War both sides deployed systems to detect incoming nuclear missiles. A bug in the Soviet system to detect and ignore false alarms caused it to treat reflections off clouds as an attack on September 26, 1983. The directive was to quickly launch a retaliatory response. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov overrode the standard protocol thereby potentially saving millions of lives.
During the Cold War both sides deployed systems to detect incoming nuclear missiles. A bug in the Soviet system to detect and ignore false alarms caused it to treat reflections off clouds as an attack on September 26, 1983. The directive was to quickly launch a retaliatory response. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov overrode the standard protocol thereby potentially saving millions of lives.
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