Not really. It was a combination of factors, including the usafe operation by its staff. Disregard for safety had been a generalized problem with this reactor d

Not really. It was a combination of factors, including the usafe operation by its staff. Disregard for safety had been a generalized problem with this reactor during all stages of its development, before the accident occured. "According to the Soviet experts the prime cause of the accident at the Chernobyl NPP was “...an extremely improbable combination of violations of instructions and operating rules committed by the staff of the unit” [3]. This conclusion sets a full responsibility for the accident at the Chernobyl NPP on its staff. Participants of the Post-Accident Review Meeting [2] also accepted the Soviet version. However, it was incorrect. This was demonstrated in 1990 by the commission of the State Committee for Atomic Safety Survey of the USSR which concluded that the main reasons of the Chernobyl accident were serious shortcomings in the design of the Chernobyl reactor as well as inadequate documents regulating a safe operation of the reactor [4]. Various errors, that were made during the turbogenerator testing by the personnel of the fours unit of the Chernobyl NPP, according to the commission, could only contribute to the development of the accident." https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:1490526 https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/kr79/kr79pdf/Malko1.pdf