The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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Vixen said:
There was only one crew member who was actually interviewed on the 28th September 1994, when Bildt issued his statement to the Swedish main papers, and that was in Finland:

JAIC Report

This would have been Henrik Sillaste. (He is not named in the report, nor is is statement shown. It is summarised. We have no way of knowing what he said and what the interviewer may have asked as a leading question, for example, "Mr Sillaste, think carefully. Can you remember seeing the bow visor?" HS: No. Report: "When the ESTONIA sank, stern first, he could see that the bow visor was missing. He was about 20 metres from the ship in a raft together with 9 to 10 others. He has estimated that the time from his first observation of water entering the car deck to the sinking was 15-20 minutes.") I find it curious this is written in the third person and not via Sillaste's own words.

None of the other crew were interviewed until 29 Sept 1994 (supporting my claim that there was no way they were in any fit condition as of the day of rescue).


In other words, Carl Bildt pulled it out of his arse.
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Can you appreciate any difference between "interviewed" and "spoke"? Just because crew were not formally interviewed does not mean they didn't talk about the really shocking thing that had just happened to them.

Is it your contention that the Swedes decided that their PM was probably busy in Finland so they wouldn't bother notifying him or keeping him up to date on events?

"We have no way of knowing what he said" so you literally invent a load of stuff that an interviewer might have asked, then invite us to be suspicious that a summary written by a third person is written in the third person.

Are you deliberately trying to be unconvincing or does it just come naturally?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
It did capsize though.



What uniform do you think they were wearing?

Are you now suggesting there weren't a bunch of crew men mysteriously in a boat ?

Are you now suggesting there wasn't any criminal involvement by any of the crew?

It's hard to keep up.
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I am not an investigator so I am not in a position to give a definitive answer. I can only give you my opinion, based on the facts as I know them. It is a fact that people are claiming nine of the Estonian crew are missing. So I looked into it. Any objections?

The captain would have been wearing his uniform.

Picture below in b/w is Captain Andresson, the other a typical uniform of a cruise captain on these liners.
 

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Reformed Offlian said:
Alternatively, there was no such error and the missing crew is just an urban legend. We know for a fact that the twelve people pulled out of the lifeboat onto the Mariella are accounted for. Are you suggesting that they miscounted, and that there were really twenty-one?

Why is it "likely" due to clerical error?
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I tend to default to 'cock up' as the usual reason for chaos rather than malice.

It is odd though that an Interpol Arrest Warrant was put out for Arvo Piht, so even the police thought he had been rescued.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What is your evidence for this?
How were the lorries 'lashed down'?




Almost as if a fire aboard a ship in port is different to a ship sinking in a storm.

Sailors are charged if they did something deliberately or were negligent.

Are you claiming it was a deliberate act by the crew again?
I thought it was a submarine that did it?
What do you suspect the crew of doing?
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From the report:

6.3.1 Testimonies concerning cargo lashings

Two able-bodied seamen have testified about the lashing of cars, lorries and trailers prior to the journey Both were involved in this work. Trailers and large vehicles were secured with four lashings and trailer chocks. Passenger cars were not lashed but parked with handbrakes on and in gear.

While loading, the two seamen were ordered to do the lashings with care because winds up to 25 m/s were expected. Both were certain that vehicles were secured in accordance with their instructions and with the equipment to hand.

Both stated that the bow visor was properly closed before sailing.
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JAIC Report

I didn't claim the crew did anything. I said if you are hired as an investigator to a public disaster, at the initial stage you can't just ignore the possibility of criminal sabotage, and that includes by the crew, or even the passengers. It's poor show to go straight to 'oh it was a poor design of bolts in the bow visor'.
 
Vixen said:
I tend to default to 'cock up' as the usual reason for chaos rather than malice.
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Then why did go at length to portray the supposed disappearance of nine crew members as being suspicious, instead of being a "cock up"? You've suddenly done an about face and are now merely dismissing it as a clerical error when it was all skulduggery and potential acts of sabotage by the crew very recently according to you (you clearly insinuated that the crew knew about what was going on early in the disaster when they somehow shouldn't have and that this was definitely suspicious, as was nine of them disappearing).

This "clerical error" idea isn't your default about the supposed disappearing crew, it's a new idea you've latched onto because your new ad hoc theory about a British submarine (or whatever) escorting the ship (for some reason) accidentally hitting it (above water somehow) and sinking the Estonia doesn't require any cloak and dagger involvement of the crew, you've just just ********** that idea.
 
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Jack by the hedge said:
So your movie now has Vladimir Putin (or similar) deciding that unauthorised black market sales of Soviet military hardware are best halted by sinking a passenger ferry carrying one consignment instead of going after the sellers, buyers or middle men and making an example of them.

Well that sounds deeply unlikely to me but let's run with it. What's Vlad's plan?
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If there was cargo on board in the form of Russian military stuff, for example stuff loaded on trucks (doesn't even have to be a Soviet truck just an ordinary army truck designed to carry armaments hardware) and the ship sank six hours into its journey, Bildt is one of the first to be informed outwith the coastguards and rescue services, and he immediately panics and puts out a press release the cause of the sinking was something technical and he knows something has gone wrong. Fact is, the divers were more interested in finding a briefcase belonging to Captain Andresson (probably an old stalinist who was trained at a Russian naval school) yet astonishingly, not in identifying who the three bodies on the bridge are, (the captain and his first and second officers in uniform that would identify them) tells you what the captain had in his possession was of great alacrity for the Swedish navy divers to find, going to the wrong cabin the first time round.

Putin was the recent head of the KGB as of the fall of the USSR. Who knows what Anderrson had in his briefcase that was so vital to find and how come Andresson didn't take the May Day call? Whatever it was, we might not know unless it is declassified.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Can you appreciate any difference between "interviewed" and "spoke"? Just because crew were not formally interviewed does not mean they didn't talk about the really shocking thing that had just happened to them.

Is it your contention that the Swedes decided that their PM was probably busy in Finland so they wouldn't bother notifying him or keeping him up to date on events?

"We have no way of knowing what he said" so you literally invent a load of stuff that an interviewer might have asked, then invite us to be suspicious that a summary written by a third person is written in the third person.

Are you deliberately trying to be unconvincing or does it just come naturally?
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It is not satisfactory because the way the report is written is made to look like the crew's own words when the phrase, 'the tallest part of the ship was the bulbous bow' could be the JAIC's words to help underline their own à priori conclusion. The reader is none the wiser.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
What for? In case it forgot where it was going? In case someone sent a cruiser to sink it?
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Same reason anyone gets an escort. Probably in the bodyguard sense. Possibly in a policing sense (detective). I don't know.

Police escort football coaches. They escort government ministers. They might escort a prison van taking someone to court.

It might be a submarine monitoring movement. It might be a rogue submarine for sale by the Russians to an inexperienced third world buyers.

It is only my opinion that it was likely a Swedish or British submarine due to who is covering it up, if there was indeed a submarine collision.

That doesn't rule out another scenario,
 
Vixen said:
If there was cargo on board in the form of Russian military stuff, for example stuff loaded on trucks (doesn't even have to be a Soviet truck just an ordinary army truck designed to carry armaments hardware) and the ship sank six hours into its journey, Bildt is one of the first to be informed outwith the coastguards and rescue services, and he immediately panics and puts out a press release the cause of the sinking was something technical and he knows something has gone wrong.
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Fantasy. A ferry sank in a storm. Bildt was told what the crew had reported about the cause and he repeated the same thing to the press. Prove otherwise.

If he hadn't been told, he wouldn't have needed to make anything up, and it would have been obviously reckless and stupid to make something up. Imagine you're him and you genuinely don't know why the ferry sank. If you just make some **** up (instead of just confirming the emerging story the journo's have been getting rumours about) the first journalist's question will be "How the **** do you know that?" and that would have exploded the whole thing.
 
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