Aleksandr Fyodorovich Akimov was a Soviet engineer who was the supervisor of the shift that worked at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Reactor Unit 4 on the night of the Chernobyl disaster, 26 April 1986.
13 Facts About Aleksandr Akimov
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Aleksandr Akimov was born on 6 May 1953 in Novosibirsk, Russian SFSR.
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In 1976, Akimov graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, with the degree of specialist in engineering and automation of heat and power processes.
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Aleksandr Akimov began his career at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in September 1979.
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On 10 July 1984, Aleksandr Akimov was appointed to the position of shift supervisor of Reactor Unit 4.
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Aleksandr Akimov heard reports of massive reactor damage but did not believe it and, as a result, relayed false information about the state of the reactor for hours thereafter.
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Aleksandr Akimov worked with his crew in the reactor building after learning the accident's extent.
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Aleksandr Akimov was admitted to Pripyat Hospital but was quickly transferred to Moscow Hospital 6.
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Aleksandr Akimov's wife visited him in hospital and while aware he might not survive, he told her that he would give up working in the nuclear industry.
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Aleksandr Akimov eventually succumbed to acute radiation syndrome two weeks after the disaster at the age of 33.
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Aleksandr Akimov's family was informed that his death was the only reason he was not prosecuted for the accident.
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In 2008, Aleksandr Akimov was posthumously awarded with the 3rd degree Order For Courage by Viktor Yushchenko, the then President of Ukraine.
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Aleksandr Akimov was portrayed by actor Aleksandr Khoroshko in the 2004 Zero Hour television series, by Alex Lowe in the 2006 BBC production Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and by Sam Troughton in the 2019 HBO miniseries Chernobyl.