The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Andy_Ross]

Investigative journalist Henrik Evertsson discovered a hole in the hull from sending down a ROV (robotic observer). He then went to various independent experts, including a military explosives expert, experienced in marine explosions and a marine physicist and professor, Jorgen Ahmdahl. The explosives boff from the appearance of the hole didn't think it was an explosion. Professor Amdahl did various calculations. Having initially said the hole could have been caused by the bow visor falling off, said his findings based on physics equations seemed to indicate a force of either for example a 1,000tonne fishing vessel collision at 5 knots or a 5,000 tonne submarine at 1.9 knots (obviously there are a whole range of weights and speeds that would deliver such an impact). Amdahl pointed out that the bow visor weighed only 55 tonnes so in his expert opinion, could not have caused the damage

Or the ship was subject to forces and stress it was not designed to cope with as it sank and shifted on the seabed over the last 20 years.

 

[Vixen]

Or the ship was subject to forces and stress it was not designed to cope with as it sank and shifted on the seabed over the last 20 years.

I see you've got the hang of JAIC report writing. Just say any old thing without bothering to actually inspect the wreck.

 

[JayUtah]

I didn't say I was an expert. I said I did a dissertation on memory (academic).

You said so as the answer to my question of whether you were claiming expertise on the subject or not. I'm American, so to me a "dissertation" means a treatise produced during doctoral level study, and would certainly qualify someone as an expert in the field. Should I not have taken your claim as a "yes" answer to my question? If you mean something else by it, then please clarify to what degree -- if any -- your claim to authorship of this material is meant to substantiate to your critics that your statements on the validity of eyewitness' memory should be taken as anything but layman's supposition. To refresh your memory, you claimed that courts consider eyewitness testimony to be especially accurate. But you're not a lawyer, and you seem not to be an expert in memory or eyewitness testimony. So I'm trying to determine the basis of your faith such testimony.

HOWEVER, when it comes to traumatic incidents, actually your memory is likely to be OVER-vivid coming to hit you as 'flashbacks'.

The vividness of a memory is not the issue. Its accuracy is, and it turns out that memory amplification increases distortion.

If an event has an emotional impact on a survivor (as a rapidly sinking ship will and seeing your fellow passengers vanish before your eyes, presumed drowned, then you are likely to remember events clearly, as though in slow motion.

Will you please cite to the science that establishes this? I think you might find that the prevailing conclusions are not quite as you report them. Cf. Strange, Oulton, Takarangi, et al.

It is nonsense to claim the passenger survivors' memories might be poor when the reverse is probably true.

That the details of traumatic events are "seared into the memories" of those who witness them is a popular notion. However, as with many effects of human memory, the question of whether that popular belief has scientific validity has an answer that might surprise you. Can you cite to research that supports your claim?

I am not going to summarise Loftus because I am not interested enough in her work to look at it right now. I might do some time.

You're not interested in summarizing the groundbreaking work of the most cited-to authority on the subject you raised? So much for your claim to be objective.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That traumatic events are "seared into the memories" of those who witness them is a popular notion. However, as with many effects of human memory, the question of whether that popular belief has scientific validity has an answer that might surprise you. Can you cite to research that supports your claim?
.

Reading witness accounts of those that experienced the same 'traumatic events' will show how unreliable they can be.

 

[Vixen]

You said so as the answer to my question of whether you were claiming expertise on the subject or not. I'm American, so to me a "dissertation" means a treatise produced during doctoral level study, and would certainly qualify someone as an expert in the field. Should I not have taken your claim as a "yes" answer to my question? If you mean something else by it, then please clarify to what degree -- if any -- your claim to authorship of this material is meant to substantiate to your critics that your statements on the validity of eyewitness' memory should be taken as anything but layman's supposition. To refresh your memory, you claimed that courts consider eyewitness testimony to be especially accurate. But you're not a lawyer, and you seem not to be an expert in memory or eyewitness testimony. So I'm trying to determine the basis of your faith such testimony.



The vividness of a memory is not the issue. Its accuracy is, and it turns out that memory amplification increases distortion.



Will you please cite to the science that establishes this? I think you might find that the prevailing conclusions are not quite as you report them. Cf. Strange, Oulton, Takarangi, et al.



That the details of traumatic events are "seared into the memories" of those who witness them is a popular notion. However, as with many effects of human memory, the question of whether that popular belief has scientific validity has an answer that might surprise you. Can you cite to research that supports your claim?



You're not interested in summarizing the groundbreaking work of the most cited-to authority on the subject you raised? So much for your claim to be objective.

The police and the courts value eye witnesses. Full stop. It doesn't matter what some psychologists believe about eye witnesses. Call them as your defence expert witness if you feel that strongly about it. Whenever there is a road accident, you will see police appealing for witnesses.

As a matter of fact, the psychologist on the JAIC resigned.


(No, I did not do a doctorate.)

 

[JayUtah]

Professor Amdahl did various calculations. Having initially said the hole could have been caused by the bow visor falling off, said his findings based on physics equations seemed to indicate...

Actually it appears Prof. Amdahl used computer simulation software, not expressly "physics equations." To be sure, the computational kernel of such systems (typically LS-DYNA) is rigorously physical. But the problem of basing actual forensic investigative findings on a computer simulation of that ilk is the vast amount of assumption that goes into any such model, and its fidelity and resolution. These are not corrected for simply by having claimed to use a physics-based tool, as solutions will not always converge. It appears a more insightful look into the study is that Prof. Amdahl got different results depending on different conditions applied to the model, and possibly different assumptions. In any case, I haven't yet been able to discover the details of his modeling of the newly discovered hole. Was it peer-reviewed?

 

[Vixen]

Reading witness accounts of those that experienced the same 'traumatic events' will show how unreliable they can be.

One eyewitness survivor on the Estonia together with quite a few, remembers it was definitely circa 1:00am when the boat shuddered violently. How did she know this? She was in bed and heard her cabinmate's clock go off for midnight (Sweden is one hour behind Estonia). Many witnesses state that was the time the boat listed shortly afterwards, together with at least two crew (Silver and Sillaste). The JAIC report says the bow visor did not fall off until 1:15. Therefore, there can not have been any water flooding in before that to cause the significant lilt.

Time line, my good fellow. Time line.

 

[Vixen]

Actually it appears Prof. Amdahl used computer simulation software, not expressly "physics equations." To be sure, the computational kernel of such systems (typically LS-DYNA) is rigorously physical. But the problem of basing actual forensic investigative findings on a computer simulation of that ilk is the vast amount of assumption that goes into any such model, and its fidelity and resolution. These are not corrected for simply by having claimed to use a physics-based tool, as solutions will not always converge. It appears a more insightful look into the study is that Prof. Amdahl got different results depending on different conditions applied to the model, and possibly different assumptions. In any case, I haven't yet been able to discover the details of his modeling of the newly discovered hole. Was it peer-reviewed?

No, it was just for Henrik Evertsson's documentary as an impartial third party expert in marine physics.

 

[JayUtah]

The police and the courts value eye witnesses. Full stop.

That doesn't mean it's accurate testimony. There are reasons that court proceedings rely on spoken testimony, and those reasons have mostly to do with the moral foundations of jurisprudence, not whether rigorous testing has confirmed what is commonly believed about it. Since a forensic engineering investigation isn't a court case, and the ostensible goal is simply to arrive at the truth, the shenanigans in courtrooms really don't apply. All we want to know is whether the witness has correctly and completely recalled the details we seek.

In any case, it seems you're unwilling to discuss the merits of your claims, so I dismiss them. You claimed you were objective, but I'm seeing less and less of that in your arguments.

It doesn't matter what some psychologists believe about eye witnesses.

Why doesn't it? They certainly seem to think it matters a great deal in cases like this. And unlike police and others, the conclusions reached by psychologists on these points are arrived at by reproducible scientific method. On that basis I am far more inclined to trust what a properly experienced psychologist has to say about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony than I am to trust a police officer on the same subject.

Call them as your defence expert witness if you feel that strongly about it.

Elizabeth Loftus has served as an expert witness in hundreds of court cases, and talks about many of them in her lectures and writing. She testified for the defense in the infamous McMartin Preschool case, where the accused were eventually acquitted.

You seem unwilling to listen to her, though. Why is that?

Whenever there is a road accident, you will see police appealing for witnesses.

And you will also see them gathering forensic evidence.

No, I did not do a doctorate.

So I'm still wondering how you can so forcefully declare your belief on this point as if it were some unassailable conclusion. You're not claiming expert knowledge on the point, so it would seem the objective thing to do in such a case is determine whether one's lay beliefs are actually true.

 

[Andy_Ross]

One eyewitness survivor on the Estonia together with quite a few, remembers it was definitely circa 1:00am when the boat shuddered violently. How did she know this? She was in bed and heard her cabinmate's clock go off for midnight (Sweden is one hour behind Estonia). Many witnesses state that was the time the boat listed shortly afterwards, together with at least two crew (Silver and Sillaste). The JAIC report says the bow visor did not fall off until 1:15. Therefore, there can not have been any water flooding in before that to cause the significant lilt.

Time line, my good fellow. Time line.

Why can there not have been water flooding in before the visor fell off completely?

 

[JayUtah]

No, it was just for Henrik Evertsson's documentary as an impartial third party expert in marine physics.

I have no reason to doubt his impartiality. But if the study was never published, and its results were reported only in a popular media production, then we have no basis of knowing to what rigor the study was done, and what his underlying assumptions might have been. As I said, despite the tools he likely used being rigorously based on sound physical principles, the employment of them to solve forensic problems is hardly as cut and dried as you seem to believe.

 

[Vixen]

Why can there not have been water flooding in before the visor fell off completely?

Because the JAIC theory is that the visor falling off caused the bow ramp to drop. One event has to happen before the next event can.

 

[JayUtah]

Time line, my good fellow. Time line.

I will point out that experts in eyewitness testimony identify reordered chronology as one of the most profound effects of memory amplification. But according to you, those kinds of findings are not worth discussing.

 

[Steve]

Why can there not have been water flooding in before the visor fell off completely?

Because the JAIC theory is that the visor falling off caused the bow ramp to drop. One event has to happen before the next event can.

Did you notice the highlighted word?

I understand there is a new investigation. Perhaps that investigation will change this particular JAIC theory. You seem to be of the opinion that the current existing investigation and report is incorrect and/or incomplete in at least some respects, yet you are quite willing to quote it as fact when it agrees with your own thoughts. Have you been able to discern exactly which parts may be accurate, which parts may be mistaken, which parts may be able to examined in more detail due to advances in investigative techniques, and which parts have, and may continue to be, been covered up due to government conspiracies?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Because the JAIC theory is that the visor falling off caused the bow ramp to drop. One event has to happen before the next event can.

Well, the bow ramp is not watertight, it is just a ramp that allows vehicles to be discharged on to docks of varying heights.
If the bow was 'working' and started to come free water would be entering the ship. It would make lots of loud noises.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Well, the bow ramp is not watertight, it is just a ramp that allows vehicles to be discharged on to docks of varying heights.
If the bow was 'working' and started to come free water would be entering the ship. It would make lots of loud noises.

Just as a layman, I would expect that the bow visor might not fall off completely before some water got behind it, equalizing the pressure with the surrounding sea.

 

[Axxman300]

Here's an idea, why not wait until a second investigation is completed and see what the findings are instead of speculating about a rouge Russian sabotage plot?

I will go out on a limb to suggest the results of the second investigation will mostly reinforce the findings of the original.

I can say that the Russians are smart, and sinking a civilian ferry on purpose is an act of war (the jetliners they've shot down were the result of misidentification because while the Russians are smart, they are prone to huge mistakes). More importantly, sinking at ferry because there was seekreht Swedish military tech onboard is not the Russian's style. Tracking said technology to its destination and later stealing it is the Russian M.O.

As far as submarines go, NATO watches Russian sub bases 24/7. A damaged sub would have stood out.

This is a tragedy. The Ocean is a cruel place to those who don't respect it. Nothing should have been out on the sea in that storm.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Here's an idea, why not wait until a second investigation is completed and see what the findings are instead of speculating about a rouge Russian sabotage plot?

Better red than dead! (Sorry, couldn't resist).

 

[Andy_Ross]

As far as submarines go, NATO watches Russian sub bases 24/7. A damaged sub would have stood out.

This is a tragedy. The Ocean is a cruel place to those who don't respect it. Nothing should have been out on the sea in that storm.

You misunderstand. It was (as far as I can make out) supposedly a Swedish sub that did the damage by mistake while it was shadowing the ferry.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

There doesn't have to be any military equipment on board at all for some rogue ex-KGB type to take revenge. Perhaps as a way of saying, 'You thought 1,000 civilian passengers would be a human shield, huh? Well we'll prove you wrong!'

LOL! Did this "rogue ex-KGB type" navigate the submarine himself? Is he the one who forewarned the vanishing Estonian crew members for some reason? Was he exchanging signals with them while in the sub? Did he have a white Persian cat, too?

"Rogue ex-KGB types" were more likely to be the ones *selling* the weapons to the Swedes in the first place. If Boris and Natasha were mad about anything, it would be that a competitor beat them to it.