The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

You have no evidence that the hole was caused by a 'significant impact'

This is a hole caused by a 'significant impact' by another ship hitting 'bows on'

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1371&pictureid=12871[/qimg]


This is a hole caused by a significant impact

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1371&pictureid=12872[/qimg]

This is a hole caused by a significant impact

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1371&pictureid=12870[/qimg]

They look nothing like the split in the Estonia.


(Last picture is HMS Diomede one of my old ships from a collision with an Icelandic gun boat in the Cod War. Many years before I was aboard though)

So what? Is it really like-for-like? Collisions can cause any kind of damage. Just because one example of damage from collision doesn't look anything like that of HMS Diomede, doesn't mean anything. It all depends on the numerous vectors, such as speed, direction, force (as in weight), shape.

You are showing a 'bows on' impact, which is similar to a head-on car crash, and not at all the same as, say a submarine crashing from the bottom or the side. For example, a car being crashed head on will feature damage very different from one rammed as it is pulling out into oncoming traffic.

 

[Vixen]

She was significantly larger than the Estonia and had been weather routed to miss the worst of it. She was 'hove to' just meeting the waves. They were not conditions outside the spec of the ship.

It sank because it started taking water in at the bow through a damaged ventilator which resulted in the bows being driven under and a sudden flooding of the cargo space.

At the time there was a large bulk carrier sinking every couple of weeks.

Two ships a week are lost at sea.

If it had a damaged ventilator, was it seaworthy in the first place? In addition, it was not a passenger ship it was:

An ore-bulk-oil carrier, also known as combination carrier or OBO, is a ship designed to be capable of carrying wet or dry cargoes. The idea is to reduce the number of empty (ballast) voyages, in which large ships only carry a cargo one way and return empty for another.

wiki

In addition, it seems to have encountered sudden hurricane-like conditions, which possibly created a perilous whirl pool, causing huge waves to land down on top of it in its eye.

 

[Vixen]

Why would they not sink in half an hour if the bows were missing in 6 meter waves?
How is water getting on to the car deck?
How common is water on the car deck?
How much water is common on the car deck?

But was the bow missing? Eyewitness, Paul Barney saw it clearly as it went down.

How would Carl Bildt know it was missing within hours of the accident? Pure misinformation.

 

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this?

All of the survivors - including crew - gave an account that because of the hypothermia threat - and they all watched as their fellow passengers died of this and they all helped keep each other awake, plus they were looking out for helicopters and ships so that they could send out a flare - a supply of which was included in the life raft - they were terrified of falling asleep (as hypothermia makes one extremely sleepy) and never waking up.

Thus, these guys were rescued in the morning of 28 Sept 1994, suffering from shock, hypothermia, broken bones, cramp and a complete lack of sleep for over 24 hours.

Do you really think that a few hours later in hospital one of the crew is able to weakly gasp in the throes of a waking dream, shivering and aching all over, 'Officer, it was bow visor what fell orf, due to the poor design of the bow visor lugs and weak bolts' <fx falls back into longed for slumber>


Give us a break!

 

[Vixen]

Why can't the hull shifting explainthe tears?

It is being subject to stress it was not designed for.
How strong do you think a sip's hull is when it is sagging or hogging?
Ship hulls fracture and tear quite often. It results in the loss of ships all the time.
Being draped over a rock with the bow and stern moving on mud will certainly cause tearing and fracture.
Go and look at the Estonia in another ten years it will be in pieces.

Not collision damage

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=672&pictureid=12874[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=672&pictureid=12873[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=672&pictureid=12875[/qimg]

Not the same type of impact puncture as shown on the Estonia.

Even the new head of investigation, Rene Arikas, who was very careful to use neutral noncommittal language at this stage (unlike Carl Bildt in 1994) said it must have been a huge impact that cause it.

 

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this?

You keep making the same claim.

All of the subterfuge and misinformation put out by Carl Bildt and the CEO of the firm's joint owners from Day 1, before the wreck had even been found. It points to who might have felt themselves to blame to have immediately pointed the finger elsewhere before any investigation and with the absolute knowledge that Carl Bildt himself OK-ed the Swedish intelligence to let through smuggled ex-Soviet defence secrets at customs, uninspected, during the same month of the accident. Any rational reasonable person might have considered a link before blaming the visor bolts (which remain on the seabed), long before visor was even pulled up.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You listed some yourself.

 

[Vixen]

So, basically authorities the entire working day to talk to survivors and ask what they saw. And the seaman who reported seeing the bow visor missing had been interviewed by authorities that same day. Nothing preventing Bildt from knowing about what he saw. Nor anything suspicious about the fact that he did.

No ethical person interrogates a very sick survivor who has just been rescued from a highly traumatic event when they haven't even slept for 24 hours.

No way was any crew interrogated in time for Carl Bildt to proclaim it was the bow visor and its poor design, just 16 hours after the accident and up to nine hours after the survivors have even been rescued and transported to hospital.

Question: how can the crew man know the bow visor was missing, as the only view the crew had was via a monitor inside the car deck, and two of the crew who saw this and survived said the car ramp was up, so they could not possibly have even seen the bow visor. For all they knew, it was raised not 'dropped in the sea'?

 

[Vixen]

I think we've both been assuming that they saw the visor off before the ship sank. Upon reading the report, they didn't; they noticed the bow visor missing after the ship was already sinking and they had abandoned it.

Citation please that they testified they saw this.

 

[erwinl]

Citations, please of these 'lots of ships', the criterion being it must have been faster than the 35" of the Estonia.

The Pommern in 1916. Torpedoed by one, possibly two, torpedoes and sunk in somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds. Not a single survivor.
Yes there were some explosions, but as you included the Britannic, this is only fair.

Aside from this one. Ore carriers in WWII had a reputation of going down so fast after even a single torpedo hit, that quite often the crew opted to sleep on deck, in order to get even the slightest change of getting of the ship, before it vanished beneath the waves.

For serious business.
See this collision between two Carnival cruise ships. (time code 44 seconds)

It's only a glancing collision and neither ship was in any danger of sinking.

But! The damage we see there, is like nothing, what you've shown us to be suspicious on the Estonia. Not above and not below the waterline there.

See also Captain_Swoop's examples of how a hull after a collision would look like.

What are your thoughts about that?

 

[Vixen]

Gustlav was launched in 1936, the Lusitania in 1906... so 30 actually. Anyways they are both on the list that YOU referenced.

ETA: and they sank less than 30 years apart.

Fair enough. Point being made that thanks to technological development, especially in WW1 and in WWII, necessity was the mother of invention, if only to discover ways to avoid being torpedoed or mined. Early ships were often powered by steam, thus comparing old ships with post-war ships is like comparing steam railway with the modern type. The Lusitania probably sank so quickly because it was of early design as compared to the Wilhelm Gustloff.

 

[Vixen]

My mistake, I thought that list was the 10 deadliest, when I saw it said "10 worst". Where did you find it?

Anyways, my point:
Some torpedoed ships have sunk faster than the Estonia, some slower, others not at all.
Some ships involved in a collision have sunk faster than Estonia, some slower, others not at all.

I'm puzzled what that is supposed to prove or show.

It proves that a ship with its hull intact, as presumed for the Estonia, sank as fast, or faster, than ships known to have collided or been torpedoed. In other words, is it even plausible it sank so fast with its hull intact?

 

[Vixen]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the final moments of the Andrea Doria. An absolute impossibility as she sank on her side. Illumianti confirmed?



Start about 1:20 if your impatient.

The Andrea Doria had another vessel collide with it. In addition, it took 11 hours to sink. In other words despite being a collision of a passenger ship, it doesn't make the top ten of ship sinkings, as the Estonia does. Without collision or torpedo or even a hurricane, it sank in a record time of 35" for a passenger ship without its hull breached.

The consequent shortage of lifeboats could have resulted in significant loss of life, but the ship stayed afloat for over 11 hours after the collision.

wiki

 

[RolandRat]

Does the ancillary stuff even matter? There is literally no evidence of a submarine.

 

[Vixen]

That is squarely contrary to the physical evidence. You've ignored every single post explaining this to you. At this point it's clear you're just shilling your own pet theory -- in ignorance -- while hypocritically accusing the professionals of doing the same. Yesterday you were trying to take your opponents to task about the submarine theory, saying these were only Professor Amdahl's examples of vessels that would fit the scenario. You told your critics they were too concretely focused if they were looking for actual vessels that matched Amdahl's examples. Now today you're back with, "It could still have been a submarine." So the rebuttal remains the same: What submarine? And don't try to weasel out of it later by claiming you weren't making that argument.

As is a matter of recorded history, the CIA, the Swedish intelligence KSI and the UK MI6, were assisting Estonia in developing its own intelligence agency after the fall of the USSR and it gaining independence in 1991, the KGB having been booted out.

The fact the Swedish immediately claimed it was a bow visor and the UK signed the treaty saying the location of the wreck is not to be inspected, under the claim of 'dignity of the dead' (ironic, when you consider Sweden wanted to encase them in concrete) points surely to whose submarine it might have been. I dare say it was an accident, but it should have come clean instead of insulting people's intelligence.

 

[Vixen]

It's not quite so academic as you say. You claimed it would have sunk markedly faster because of the extra weight. The physical facts don't support your claim. You were wrong, and you were wrong because you don't know how ships work, yet somehow you think you're competent to question the findings of professionals when talking about a particular ship. You played up the incident when you thought you were right, then back away from it when you're proven wrong. What happened to the ship is immaterial; that part is academic. But if your goal is to present yourself as if you know what you're talking about, then it's not academic and you were simply wrong.

Just once we'd like to hear the words come out of your mouth, "Sorry, I guess I was wrong about that." Instead you're always trying to save face.

Fact is, the Eastland didn't actually sink, so how long it would take to sink is academic. Fact is, the owners were found to have overloaded it with too many passenger and installed life boats and concrete flooring which made it most certainly unseaworthy,which it was, and hence used as a riverboat instead.

 

[Vixen]

I didn't say it fell open, did I?



Asked and answered. The top of the ramp extended into the housing, allowing the ramp locks and actuators to be damaged should the visor fall away. The visor cannot go by the board without making contact in one way or another with the ramp. It doesn't have to tear the ramp completely off in order to spring its hinges or deform it in a way that lets in sea water. Your wave-dive pressure theory assumes the ramp was free to rotate, even if the locks fail. That's not a good thing to assume. If the ramp was deformed or dragged partially open, it can still be held in that position by hydraulic locking. It won't rotate simply because something pushes it from the front.



I'm not claiming it took the ramp with it. But the visor cannot fall off without hitting the top of the stowed ramp and applying some or all of its 56,000 kg to it. That has nothing to do with mechanisms.

That is the only way the JAIC could shoehorn it into fitting Carl Bildt's misinformation. However, this reasoning is seriously flawed.

Investigated cutting scenario (page 16)

The scenario we are checking is limited to the short time when the hydraulic lugs are said to have cut their way through the deck beam. If cutting through the deck beam is proven impossible by the forces involved, the entire JAIC scenario is wrong. Moreover, in that case it also prove that the ramp could not have been ripped open by the visor. The scenario is described in the following figures:

The Independent Fact Group

 

[Andy_Ross]

It proves that a ship with its hull intact, as presumed for the Estonia, sank as fast, or faster, than ships known to have collided or been torpedoed. In other words, is it even plausible it sank so fast with its hull intact?

It wasn't intact, the bow was missing.

 

[RolandRat]

The Independent Fact Group don't buy into the submarine thing though, right?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Fact is, the Eastland didn't actually sink, so how long it would take to sink is academic. Fact is, the owners were found to have overloaded it with too many passenger and installed life boats and concrete flooring which made it most certainly unseaworthy,which it was, and hence used as a riverboat instead.

If a ship is on the bottom it has sunk unless you have your own definition of the word.