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The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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Captain_Swoop said:
Again, the visor does not extend all the way to the keel. It goes to just below the level of the car deck just above the waterline.
Below that the bow continues down to the keel. It is also 'bulbous', it extends forward of the stem below the water in a rounded 'bulb' as do most ships built in the last 40 years or so.
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Totally irrelevant to this issue.
 
theprestige said:
Sure you can. It depends what your inquiry is about. If you're looking at engineering questions about bow visors, car decks, and flooding, then the crew's alleged heroism is completely irrelevant, and you don't need to give their testimony much thought at all.
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Yes, but what if the bow visor fandango is a red herring? It is all very well producing hundreds of pages about the technical specifications of the bow visor and its bolts and locks but why would the JAIC assume it was the bow visor's fault from day 1, when nobody yet knew what caused the accident?

PM Carl Bildt told the Swedish press on 28/29 September 1994 (accident date 28 Sept in the early hours) that it was a fault of the bow visor. The JAIC issued a statement 4 Oct 1994 that they believed it was the bow visor and that that car deck flooded. Conclusion fast forward three long years: "It was the bow visor what fell off, M'Lud".

Get the crew's story straight and it can be fitted into the narrative. No-one has questioned whether the crew's narrative is credible or possible.

Leave out any pesky survivors' narratives as, ah...see Loftus, 2014...their memories are, er, unreliable.


Just bung in a few anonymised sentences in that fit the narrative of the report.

Job done.
 
erwinl said:
Finally got around to seeing this movie.

What the dear professor is looking at is the Norwegian Ula class submarine, a class of 6 submarines which was built in Germany. He actually does call it that and the name of the class (the wiki page) is visible onscreen.
Which you know as, you've seen this documentary, else you couldn't point me to it.
By the way. He first searches for the Kobben submarines (he says so, while typing in the search). Also a Norwegian class. He then finds these are too small and then goes on to the next larger class, the Ula class.

He never searches for Swedish submarines!

The plot is thickening!
The Swedish navy used one of the Norwegian submarines to sink the Estonia!
Well at least that explains the lack of damage in the Swedish submarines. Could of course also be that the Norwegians were the ones who sank the Estonia.

That or the dear professor is speaking nonsense.
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A-HA!

Say after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry
Take on me, (take on me)
Take me on, (take on me)
I'll be gone
In a day or two ~ Morten Harket
 
Vixen said:
A-HA!

Say after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry
Take on me, (take on me)
Take me on, (take on me)
I'll be gone
In a day or two ~ Morten Harket
Click to expand...

No reaction concerning the specifics of the professor looking only at Norwegian subs?
 
Sinking Ships

Here are the ten worst passenger shipping accidents, together with tonnage, cause of the accident and time taken to sink. It is in the order of 'time taken to sink'.


  1. Empress of Ireland (UK 1914) 14,191, COLLISION, 14 minutes
  2. Admiral Nakhimov (USSR 1986) - 17,053, COLLISION - 15 minutes
  3. Don Juan (Philippines 1980) - 2,311 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  4. Lusitania (UK, 1915) - 31,550 - TORPEDO - 15 minutes
  5. Royal Pacific (Greece 1992) - 3,176 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  6. Salem Express (Egypt 1991) - 4,771 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  7. European Gateway (UK 1982) - 4,263 - COLLISION - 30 minutes
  8. M/S Estonia (Estonia 1994) - 15,598 - "Er, the bow fell off" - 35 minutes
  9. Jupiter (Greece 1988) - 6,306 - COLLISION - 40 minutes
  10. Express Samina (Greece 2000) - 4,455 - COLLISION - 45 minutes
  11. Wilhelm Gustloff (Germany 1945) - 19,350 - TORPEDOES - 50 minutes
  12. Brittanic (UK 1916) - 48,158 - EXPLOSION - 55 minutes

Notandum: M/S Estonia is the only vessel that was supposedly 'intact' that sank in less than one hour.

For example, the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a 'pitchfork' firing of three torpedoes at a time, each to a different section of the ship. Yet even three torpedoes to its side took the vessel 50 minutes to sink. What's more, it was even heavier than the Estonia.

In addition, it takes a long time for a passenger ferry cruise liner to sink because of its structure of up to ten decks of passenger cabins, dancefloors, bars, shops and facilities such as swimming pools and saunas. In other words, the water doesn't enter evenly and all at the same time. Even if the car deck was filled with water, the buoyancy of the hull would ensure that it would first capsize and then float upside down. The Estonia didn't do any of these things, it went down virtually immediately, listed to one side, the stern sank, the superstructure turned over, to fall bow last, like a domino. It was 155m long, the depth of the sea between 70 - 80 metres deep, so the top heaviness of the bow end, whilst the stern was on the seabed, caused it to topple forward, without 'turtleing' (i.e., floating belly up), sinking in record speed, even faster than the triple-torpedoed Wilhelm Gustloff.


Posters on ISF: 'That's fine. So what?'

Which one of us is the true sceptic? (Rhetorical question.)
 
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erwinl said:
No reaction concerning the specifics of the professor looking only at Norwegian subs?
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Amdahl was simply providing the viewer - knowing that not everybody is a naval expert on vessel collisions - some idea of what kind of force or object could cause a hole in the hull similar to the one film maker Evertsson spotted.


Sure, it could be the impact of sinking, or shifting over the years, however, it still needs to show the type of force Amdahl refers to.


A Norwegian sub is not particularly different from other nation's subs; I expect he was using an example that was familiar to himself. He was not saying the cause was a Norwegian sub, he was suggesting that a submarine of circa 1,000 tonnes travelling at circa 5 knots, could cause a similar hole in the hull.


It was an example, not a statement of fact.
 
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Vixen said:
Amdahl was simply providing the viewer - knowing that not everybody is a naval expert on vessel collisions - some idea of what kind of force or object could cause a hole in the hull similar to the one film maker Evertsson spotted.


Sure, it could be the impact of sinking, or shifting over the years, however, it still needs to show the type of force Amdahl refers to.


A Norwegian sub is not particularly different from other nation's subs; I expect he was using an example that was familiar to himself. He was not saying the cause was a Norwegian sub, he was suggesting that a submarine of circa 1,000 tonnes travelling at circa 5 knots, could cause a similar hole in the hull.


It was an example, not a statement of fact.
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And the total absence of damaged or sunk submarines during that period is of no importance in the validity of this thought?
 
Vixen said:
Here are the ten worst peacetime civilian shipping accidents, together with cause of the accident and time taken to sink. It is in the order of 'time taken to sink'.


  1. Empress of Ireland (UK 1914) 14,191, COLLISION, 14 minutes
  2. Admial Nakhimov (USSR 1986) - 17,053, COLLISION - 15 minutes
  3. Don Juan (Philipines 1980) - 2,311 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  4. Lusitania (UK, 1915) - 31,550 - TORPEDO - 15 minutes
  5. Royal Pacific (Greece 1992) - 3,176 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  6. Salem Express (Egypt 1991) - 4,771 - COLLISION - 15 minutes
  7. European Gateway (UK 1982) - COLLISION - 30 minutes
  8. M/S Estonia (Estonia 1994) - 15,598 - "Er, the bow fell off" - 35 minutes
  9. Jupiter (Greece 1988) - 6,306 - COLLISION - 40 minutes
  10. Express Samina (Greece 2000) - 4,455 - COLLISION - 45 minutes
  11. Wilhelm Gustloff (Germany 1945) - 19,350 - TORPEDOES - 50 minutes
  12. Brittanic (UK 1916) - 48,158 - EXPLOSION - 55 minutes

Notandum: M/S Estonia is the only vessel that was supposedly 'intact' that sank in less than one hour.

For example, the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a 'pitchfork' firing of three torpedoes at a time, each to a different section of the ship. Yet even three torpedoes to its side took the vessel 50 minutes to sink. What's more, it was even heavier than the Estonia.

In addition, it takes a long time for a passenger ferry cruise liner to sink because of its structure of up to ten decks of passenger cabins, dancefloors, bars, shops and facilities such as swimming pools and saunas. In other words, the water doesn't enter evenly and all at the same time. Even if the car deck was filled with water, the buoyancy of the hull would ensure that it would first capsize and then float upside down. The Estonia didn't do any of these things, it went down virtually immediately, listed to one side, the stern sank, the superstructure turned over, to fall bow last, like a domino. It was 155m long, the depth of the sea between 70 - 80 metres deep, so the top heaviness of the bow end, whilst the stern was on the seabed, caused it to topple forward, without 'turtleing' (i.e., floating belly up), sinking in record speed, even faster than the triple-torpedoed Wilhelm Gustloff.


Posters on ISF: 'That's fine. So what?'

Which one of us is the true sceptic? (Rhetorical question.)
Click to expand...
Lusitania, Wilhelm Gustloff and the Brittanic counted as ‘peacetime civilian shipping accidents’?

Wow. You’re not even trying anymore, aren’t you?
 
erwinl said:
In post 940 you just said the 5000 ton fishing boat had to be discarded for consideration.
What is it now?
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Amdahl putting it in the simplest of language so that the average viewer could understand - rather than reams and reams of incomprehensible graphs and equations - gave a range of force of weight of colliding article and estimated speed needed to cause that type of damage to that type of ship of that weight, travelling at that speed on those conditions. As the weight of the potentially offending object is the variable factor, as is its speed, and they are inversely proportionate, he gave as examples, a fishing boat weighing typically 5,000 tonnes at 1.9 knots ranging to a submarine of the smallest size weighing typically 1,000 tonnes travelling at 5 knots. It could be anything in between.

IMV it is not likely to have been a fishing boat because (a) of the weather forecast of choppy waters, (b) it was the middle of the night and (c) there would surely be a radar/satellite of its presence lodged somewhere and, being civilian, likely to have had casualties itself and would be in the public domain as having had an accident, so I think we can safely rule out the fishing vessel.
 
erwinl said:
And the total absence of damaged or sunk submarines during that period is of no importance in the validity of this thought?
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What happens within the military stays in the military.

It tends to only become public if there is a civilian or commercial vessel involved or that the accident has obviously happened, as with the Kursk, with several nations offering to scramble to its rescue, and as declined by Russia.
 
Vixen said:
Amdahl putting it in the simplest of language so that the average viewer could understand - rather than reams and reams of incomprehensible graphs and equations - gave a range of force of weight of colliding article and estimated speed needed to cause that type of damage to that type of ship of that weight, travelling at that speed on those conditions. As the weight of the potentially offending object is the variable factor, as is its speed, and they are inversely proportionate, he gave as examples, a fishing boat weighing typically 5,000 tonnes at 1.9 knots ranging to a submarine of the smallest size weighing typically 1,000 tonnes travelling at 5 knots. It could be anything in between.

IMV it is not likely to have been a fishing boat because (a) of the weather forecast of choppy waters, (b) it was the middle of the night and (c) there would surely be a radar/satellite of its presence lodged somewhere and, being civilian, likely to have had casualties itself and would be in the public domain as having had an accident, so I think we can safely rule out the fishing vessel.
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Next question.
Why are the typical fishing boats in the Baltic so large?

Here the typical North Sea trawler does not come anywhere near 5000 tons.

Or is that another one of these ‘examples’ by the professor?

Edit: according to Eurostat, the average size of an EU fishing vessel is 19 gross tons.
You’re saying the typical baltic fishing vessel is 250 times as large?

Edit 2:

According to Eurostat in 2010 there were more than 85000 fishing vessels in the EU.
Of these 85000, there were 90 which were larger than 2000 tons.
Most of these were from France, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands.
Sweden fot example had none (in 2010) of this size, let alone of 5000 tons.

And.... edit 3.
You can find the data for 1994. In the whole of the EU there were then 50 fishing vessels, larger than 2000 tons. None of them owned by Sweden.

So.
Where is your declaration of 'a fishing boat weighing typically 5,000 tonnes' based in reality?
 
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Vixen said:
What happens within the military stays in the military.

It tends to only become public if there is a civilian or commercial vessel involved or that the accident has obviously happened, as with the Kursk, with several nations offering to scramble to its rescue, and as declined by Russia.
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Uhm.
'What happens within the military stays in the military.' is just, yet again, handwaving away inconventient questions, in order to not have to answer them.


If that was so true, we would have never have heard about the 2004 collision between the Vanguard and Le Triomphant. If ever there would have been an easy collision to be silent about, this would be one.
Not only that, but there was a very clear and present need and motive to keep it secret, because it impacted a substantial part of the strategic arms of two countries. But what is worse it brought into the public some very embarrassing knowledge concerning the area and limitations therein of the patrols of both nations. (knowledge, I'm sure both Russia and the US, would have found, very, very interesting).

And yet we know about it. And knew about it from the moment the damaged vessels started getting into port.


So.
Without any handwaving, please.
Where are the damaged subs during/after the Estonia sinking?
And which of them was it?
 
RolandRat said:
I'd not heard about that before. That's a concerning incident.
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Yes it was.

Not only did both France and the UK lose the use of a significant part of their strategic missiles for a while. It also became clear that they, unbeknown to eachother, were both using the same area in the Atlantic for their patrols. And not only the same area, but also the same tracks in that area.

These two vessels approached eachother head on and apparantly these modern missile boats are so quiet, that neither could hear the other ones engine or screw (these being screened by the bulk of the hull in front of them, becasue of the angle of approach).

Luckily, as both vessels were on patrol, the speeds were very low and thus neither was in danger of sinking.

I don't have to tell you how interesting all this information would be to a country like Russia.
 
erwinl said:
Uhm.
'What happens within the military stays in the military.' is just, yet again, handwaving away inconventient questions, in order to not have to answer them.


If that was so true, we would have never have heard about the 2004 collision between the Vanguard and Le Triomphant. If ever there would have been an easy collision to be silent about, this would be one.
Not only that, but there was a very clear and present need and motive to keep it secret, because it impacted a substantial part of the strategic arms of two countries. But what is worse it brought into the public some very embarrassing knowledge concerning the area and limitations therein of the patrols of both nations. (knowledge, I'm sure both Russia and the US, would have found, very, very interesting).

And yet we know about it. And knew about it from the moment the damaged vessels started getting into port.


So.
Without any handwaving, please.
Where are the damaged subs during/after the Estonia sinking?
And which of them was it?
Click to expand...

Just because that one became public knowledge, it doesn't follow they all do. For example:

Two nuclear submarines from rival sides in the cold war collided a few miles off the coast of Scotland in an incident that was covered up for 43 years.

The potentially catastrophic crash occurred in November 1974 when the SSBN James Madison, armed with 16 Poseidon nuclear missiles, was heading out of the US naval base at Holy Loch, 30 miles north-west of Glasgow.

Soon after leaving the port it hit an unidentified Soviet submarine that had been sent to tail it, according to a cable to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, marked “secret eyes only” [pdf].

The cable, sent by national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, said: “Have just received word from the Pentagon that one of our Poseidon submarines has just collided with a Soviet submarine.
Click to expand...
GUARDIAN

Covered up for 43 years. So don't say it doesn't happen.
 
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