TLIAE: Apocalypse Averted – The 1986 Global War Scare

James G

Gone Fishin'
This is what I am calling a Time Line In An Evening (TLIAE), a challenge to myself.
 
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James G

Gone Fishin'
The story is complete. It took me just over six hours. I enjoyed the self-challenge: I hope you liked it.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Another great WW3ish story, well done!

Thank you. Enjoyed the ending very much :)

Thanks! An interesting take on a war scare instead of actual war!
Thank you for the kind words.
It was an idea for a proper TL I had years ago that I was recently reminded of. I was ran with what I had; there is plenty more that could be done with a war scare in a TL, perhaps another time.
This morning I have had million more ideas TBH.
 
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was on his way to the United States and Canada for a diplomatic visit on October 19th 1986 when his aircraft went down over the North Atlantic. The jetliner carrying the Soviet General Secretary, his staff, diplomats, security personnel and its crew were all aboard when it was witnessed on radar screens dropping fast and in what appeared to be an uncontrolled fashion towards the ocean far below. There were no radio communications that came from the aircraft and is disappeared when its altitude reached sea level. Other aircraft in the sky that morning were contacted though no one appeared to have seen anything to give an idea as to what exactly had happened.

Civilian air controllers on both sides of the North Atlantic sent out emergency alerts for a rescue effort to be mounted. They followed standard operational procedures even though it was at once realised that there wasn’t going to be much hope of finding anyone alive due to where the aircraft had gone down and in the manner that it had. Military headquarters were informed of what had happened due to their ability to send ships and aircraft. Naturally, it was very quickly realised who was the passenger aboard once the nationality of that aircraft was revealed.

Word was passed onto politicians and intelligence agencies. The media would take some time to find out yet it wouldn’t take that long for such news to be leaked to them. Everyone was going to start paying attention soon enough.

I am going to naughty and suggest that the KGB assassinated Gorby. There was a certain young KGB officer going by the name Vladimir Putin (later President Putin) Conspiracy theorists suggest that he was responsible for planting a bomb on that doomed plane under orders from his KGB master....

Motive the KGB wanted to sabotage the reform plans which, as the KGB believed risked the collapse of he Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. For obvious reasons the "truth" could never be revealed

Or perhaps it was simply an unfortunate accident? Pilot error? A technical fault?The truth is out there....
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Putin, nada. He was in Dresden as a Major/LTC at the time doing kompromat on foreign students not blowing up aircraft. In my mind, with TL events like this, he'd end up swinging feet first from an East German lamppost when the revolutionaries go all Hungary 1956.
I like the idea of an act of god to make that plane go down.
 
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