The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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RolandRat said:
I think it was more the silly allegations of a collision with a sub that he was surprised at.
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Margus Kurm isn't some schoolboy typing away in his parents' basement instead of doing his homework. Margus Kurm was Estonia's state prosecutor. So he wouldn't mention a 'silly allegation' given his profession of weighing up probable cause.

In 2009, Estonia's leading public prosecutor, Margus Kurm, expressed the hope that the Estonian wreck would be thoroughly investigated. According to Kurm, a proper investigation of the wreck is the only way to stop speculation about the causes of the shipwreck and ensure that no crime has occurred.
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Fair enough, if he thinks a crime might have been committed, that his job to investigate. Or do you think that if there had been a suspicion of a crime committed, together with probably cause, we should turn a blind eye because it might upset a Swedish senator?
 
He doesn't think a crime has been committed. He's just falling into the CT trap of believing a new investigation will satisfy their prurient interests.

Also Donald Trump held the highest position in one of the most important governments on the planet. So fancy titles don't impress me. Maybe what we're learning here is Estonia had a crap prosecutor for a while.
 
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Vixen said:
Margus Kurm isn't some schoolboy typing away in his parents' basement instead of doing his homework. Margus Kurm was Estonia's state prosecutor. So he wouldn't mention a 'silly allegation' given his profession of weighing up probable cause.

wiki

Fair enough, if he thinks a crime might have been committed, that his job to investigate. Or do you think that if there had been a suspicion of a crime committed, together with probably cause, we should turn a blind eye because it might upset a Swedish senator?
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It's not his job to investigate, he is no longer a prosecutor. There is no evidence to back his "theory" up, it has been roundly dismissed. Why do you think people who hold positions such as being a former prosecutor are immune from being tinfoil hatters?

https://news.err.ee/1140442/head-of...tion-estonia-sank-on-collision-with-submarine

"That means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere?

Yes, it means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere. But I will specify a bit. If one says a collision with a submarine, the first thought is the submarine ran into Estonia from its side. It might not have been so simple. It was more likely a intrusion. That Estonia and a submarine went in the same direction. And we can not rule out that Estonia might have hit the submarine, grazed the submarine. The question is what was a submarine doing on Estonia's route."

I mean, come on. Where is this sub? Maybe it engaged its cloak and went back to Romulan space.
 
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Vixen said:
This is incorrect. Dozens of survivors, including Paul Barney and Kent Horstedt from different life rafts decribed the stern going down first with the bow in the air against a clear moon that suddenly appeared from behind a cloud. Both independently described it as a strangely beautiful moment.

If it listed at 90° what was the captain standing on when he made his May Day call? Obviously the bridge must have been somewhat upright and he reported 20° - 30 °. Had the ship actually capsized it would then have floated bottom up, but it didn't. As it happens, people on the ship had about ten minutes in which to escape. If the ship was already lilting at 90° with seawater rushing in and filling the car deck within two minutes, there is no way they would have had time to get to the stairs, as many obviously did. Within two minutes the ship would have capsized, as with Lesteri Maju and the Herald of Free Enterprise. Once the heel was >40° there is no way they would have even been able to stand. As it happened, the ship sank in 35 minutes without actually capsizing.

The Swedish government confirmed that military equipment was on board M/S Estonia. This is a matter of fact. They declined to admit this was the case on the night in question, but confirm it had done so two weeks before.
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Where are you getting 90 degrees in minutes? are you paying any attention to the timing?
The mayday went out long before it was at 90.
Who disputes that the ship sank stern first?

And again with the 'military equipment'

What does some military equipment aboard two weeks before have to do with anything?
 
RolandRat said:
It's not his job to investigate, he is no longer a prosecutor. There is no evidence to back his "theory" up, it has been roundly dismissed. Why do you think people who hold positions such as being a former prosecutor are immune from being tinfoil hatters?

https://news.err.ee/1140442/head-of...tion-estonia-sank-on-collision-with-submarine

"That means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere?

Yes, it means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere. But I will specify a bit. If one says a collision with a submarine, the first thought is the submarine ran into Estonia from its side. It might not have been so simple. It was more likely a intrusion. That Estonia and a submarine went in the same direction. And we can not rule out that Estonia might have hit the submarine, grazed the submarine. The question is what was a submarine doing on Estonia's route."

I mean, come on. Where is this sub? Maybe it engaged its cloak and went back to Romulan space.
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It's all to do with the secret Russian weapons that the Swedes were smuggling aboard the ship, the sub was 'escorting' the ferry apparently.
For some reason the sub captain decided to ram the ferry.

It's all ****.
 
Vixen said:
The discovery of a hole in the side of the vessel in the hull, comes as a complete surprise to them..? They didn't know there was a hole and apx three long fractures in the hull. Yet they were responsible for producing the report.



This is why the Swedish and Estonian governments have funded the new investigation, starting last week.
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Do you have any evidence the holes/fractures were there, and this is important, AT THE TIME?!
 
Vixen said:
I meant within a few days of the accident. Obviously, not now.
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I know what you meant.
My question is still open for you to answer.

Here’s a hint concerning your ‘within a few days of the accident’.
The Costa Concordia, a ship that never truly went under water completely and was laying against the shore of an island. Almost perfect situation for retrieving bodies and salvaging the ship ‘in a few days’, one would guess. Certainly easier than the Estonia.

Now. How long after the sinking was it that the final bodies were found and retrieved? How long did it take to salvage that ship?
 
Before it is mentioned Herald Of Free Enterprise was recovered quickly but it was in very shallow water and came to rest on a sand bar with half the hull above the surface.
It was righted and refloated by pumping with not much damage.
There was talk of putting it back in to service but eventually it was towed to Taiwan for scrapping.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Where are you getting 90 degrees in minutes? are you paying any attention to the timing?
The mayday went out long before it was at 90.
Who disputes that the ship sank stern first?

And again with the 'military equipment'

What does some military equipment aboard two weeks before have to do with anything?
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The May Day was at intervals from 1:22 to circa 1:25am. By 1:36am it was at the bottom of the sea. (This is what time the ship's clock stopped at.) The JAIC had the time it sank as 1:50. This is because it surely knew that sinking within 35 minutes was an all time record. The Estonia is the only intact ship to have sunk in less than an hour, in maritime history. In fact, it sank faster than many torpedoed ships.

Try it with your rubber ducks in the bath. If you turn it on its side it: either rights itself or floats upside down.

The only explanation surely is that the hull, which provides a ship's buoyancy, must have been breached. However, the JAIC in their report nowhere mention the hull. Seaman Sillaste actually told them he had the bilge pumps going when he saw water 'on the car deck', but the bilge pumps are in the hull, so he must have been pumping water out of one of the watertight hull chambers. There are no bilge pumps on the car deck so the JAIC was inaccurate when it reported that bilge pumps were used in the car deck.
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
Do you have any evidence the holes/fractures were there, and this is important, AT THE TIME?!
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It was decided almost straight away the cause of the accident was that the bow visor had fallen off, this was before they had even located the boat. There were many hours of footage taken of the submerged wreck but the JAIC concentrated on the bow visor and car deck. The footage shown to the public, via the press doesn't show the starboard side.

IOW the state of the hull was studiously not mentioned, although an early investigator in the meeting minutes does say that the bow visor coming off must have caused a hole in the side, so it suggest they did indeed know of it.
 
erwinl said:
I know what you meant.
My question is still open for you to answer.

Here’s a hint concerning your ‘within a few days of the accident’.
The Costa Concordia, a ship that never truly went under water completely and was laying against the shore of an island. Almost perfect situation for retrieving bodies and salvaging the ship ‘in a few days’, one would guess. Certainly easier than the Estonia.

Now. How long after the sinking was it that the final bodies were found and retrieved? How long did it take to salvage that ship?
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From wiki:

The evacuation of Costa Concordia took over six hours, and of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew known to have been aboard, 32 died. Francesco Schettino, the ship's captain at that time, was subsequently found guilty of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident, and abandoning his ship.[3] The wreck was salvaged three years after the incident and then towed to the port of Genoa, where scrapping operations began.[4]
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So not really like-for-like. In fact, a Norwegian diving company Stolt Comex who happened to be in Turku at the time (11 Oct 1994) offered to salvage all bodies on an expenses only not-for-profit basis of Swedish Kroner 250,000, which looks a lot but is only about GBP25,000 or €30K, US$40K. The Swedish government said, no.

So it is no wonder some people think that the bodies being left there was an excuse not to salvage the ship for examination.

They actually wanted to cover it up with concrete! How is that in any way a dignified way to treat the dead?
 
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Vixen said:
The May Day was at intervals from 1:22 to circa 1:25am. By 1:36am it was at the bottom of the sea. (This is what time the ship's clock stopped at.) The JAIC had the time it sank as 1:50. This is because it surely knew that sinking within 35 minutes was an all time record. The Estonia is the only intact ship to have sunk in less than an hour, in maritime history. In fact, it sank faster than many torpedoed ships.

Try it with your rubber ducks in the bath. If you turn it on its side it: either rights itself or floats upside down.

The only explanation surely is that the hull, which provides a ship's buoyancy, must have been breached. However, the JAIC in their report nowhere mention the hull. Seaman Sillaste actually told them he had the bilge pumps going when he saw water 'on the car deck', but the bilge pumps are in the hull, so he must have been pumping water out of one of the watertight hull chambers. There are no bilge pumps on the car deck so the JAIC was inaccurate when it reported that bilge pumps were used in the car deck.
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Yes it was breached, the bloody bows fell off the ship in a storm!!

It's not difficult.

Rubber ducks in the bath? **** off.
 
Vixen said:
It was decided almost straight away the cause of the accident was that the bow visor had fallen off, this was before they had even located the boat. There were many hours of footage taken of the submerged wreck but the JAIC concentrated on the bow visor and car deck. The footage shown to the public, via the press doesn't show the starboard side.

IOW the state of the hull was studiously not mentioned, although an early investigator in the meeting minutes does say that the bow visor coming off must have caused a hole in the side, so it suggest they did indeed know of it.
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It was decided almost straight away the cause of the accident was the bow visor falling off because the bow visor fell off!
 
Vixen said:
A bow visor shouldn't affect the buoyancy of the hull. It should have capsized and then turtled but it didn't.
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It's the water that gets in when the bows fall off that effects the buoyancy!
It's not difficult.

Why do you think the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized when the bows were left open?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
It's the water that gets in when the bows fall off that effects the buoyancy!
It's not difficult.

Why do you think the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized when the bows were left open?
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That was a different type of car ferry and after that accident in 1987 regulations were tightened.

The eight-deck car and passenger ferry was owned by Townsend Thoresen, designed for rapid loading and unloading on the competitive cross-channel route, and there were no watertight compartments.
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It sank immediately on leaving the port.

The Estonia left Tallinn at circa 7:00pm and didn't sink until between 1:15 - 1:50 (according to the JAIC). Unlike the Herald of Free Enterprise, it had not only a bow visor, it had a car ramp (the bow comes down, the ramp goes up) The car ramp has eight hooks/locks designed to withstand a force of 25 tonnes each, It is independent of the bow visor, so the bow visor falling off wouldn't impact the car ramp. The JAIC said the visor falling off distorted the top of the ramp by a metre and the water came in through the top.

Even if the car deck had completely flooded, it should have done so within about two minutes, capsized and then floated upside down because of the buoyancy in an intact hull. But it didn't, it listed 40° to starboard and then righted itself to port by 15°, giving people who felt the severe list, a further ten minutes or so to get out. Those who got out were predominantly the young people who preferred to spend the night on deck, to save money (now, you have to buy a cabin ticket by law, if overnight), the crew, whose cabins were near the upper decks, plus they had windows that opened that they could climb out [plus they knew where the correct stairs to the upper deck were and to dress warmly] plus those in the expensive cabins in floor six and seven. The sheer speed at which the Estonia sank, meant very few on the lower decks, mostly people with children or the more elderly, had any chance.

The fact, the Estonia did not capsize - like the Herald of Free Enterprise - indicates it was a breach in the hull, as it sank like a stone, stern first.
 
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