26 Facts About Anatoly Dyatlov

Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov was a Soviet engineer who was the deputy chief engineer for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Anatoly Dyatlov supervised the safety test which resulted in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, for which he served time in prison as he was blamed for not following the safety protocols.

Anatoly Dyatlov was released due to health concerns in 1990.

Anatoly Dyatlov ran away from home at the age of 14.

Anatoly Dyatlov first studied in a vocational school, at the electrical engineering department of the Mining and Metallurgical Technical School in Norilsk, and worked three years as an electrician before he was admitted at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute where he graduated in 1959 with honors.

Anatoly Dyatlov was in charge of Units Three and Four.

Anatoly Dyatlov worked 6 or even 7 days a week for long shifts while priding himself on his knowledge of reactor systems.

On 26 April 1986, Anatoly Dyatlov supervised a test at Reactor 4 of the nuclear plant, which resulted in the Chernobyl disaster.

In preparation, Anatoly Dyatlov ordered the power to be reduced to 200 MW, which was lower than the 700 MW stipulated in the test plan.

Anatoly Dyatlov said that the power decreased to 30 MW when switching between automatic rod control systems.

Anatoly Dyatlov called for increased water circulation to the reactor in an attempt to cool it, not knowing most of the systems had just been destroyed.

The reactor shop supervisor returned to the control room to say the reactor had been destroyed, but Anatoly Dyatlov refused to believe him.

Anatoly Dyatlov left the control room to evaluate the situation, even attempting to locate the lost plant worker Valery Khodemchuk.

Anatoly Dyatlov began to feel weak and started vomiting, caused by acute radiation syndrome, so he gathered the operating logs from the control room and left for the administration building to report to Bryukhanov.

Anatoly Dyatlov was admitted to Pripyat Hospital where he initially refused treatment, saying he just needed to sleep.

Anatoly Dyatlov's condition began to worsen due to the delayed effects of his radiation exposure.

Anatoly Dyatlov recovered thanks to hospital care, surviving what is often a lethal radiation dose.

Together with Nikolai Fomin and Viktor Bryukhanov, Anatoly Dyatlov was criminally charged for failure to follow safety regulations.

Anatoly Dyatlov claimed that he was not present when the reactor stalled or when the power level was increased, but this was contradicted by several witnesses.

All six were found guilty and Anatoly Dyatlov was given the maximum sentence of ten years.

Anatoly Dyatlov wrote a letter to the family of Toptunov, relating how he had tried to restore coolant to the reactor.

Anatoly Dyatlov was granted amnesty in late 1990 due to his worsening health from radiation exposure.

Anatoly Dyatlov wrote a paper published in Nuclear Engineering International in 1991 and a book in which he claimed that poor plant design, rather than plant personnel, was primarily responsible for the accident.

Anatoly Dyatlov died of heart failure in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1995, which was almost certainly caused by his radiation poisoning from the accident.

Anatoly Dyatlov was portrayed by Igor Slavinskiy in the 2004 series Zero Hour: Disaster At Chernobyl, by Roger Alborough in 2006 BBC production Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and by Paul Ritter in the 2019 HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

Anatoly Dyatlov's memoirs were recorded in 1994, a year before his death.