The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

Bangs do not mean explosions.

Of course not. However, the nature of the bangs on the night of 28 Sept 1994, was that sea man Silver Linde said he was thrown off his feet. Several passenger survivors said they were thrown out of bed.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Of course not. However, the nature of the bangs on the night of 28 Sept 1994, was that sea man Silver Linde said he was thrown off his feet. Several passenger survivors said they were thrown out of bed.

By the ship lurching. Not by a blast wave. Don't be absurd.

 

[Vixen]

Did they say how they would salvage it?

Estonia is over 15,000grt and 150m in length.

Where has this been done before?

What techniques were used?

See how they coped with Ehime Maru:

In response to requests from the families of Ehime Maru's victims and the government of Japan, the USN raised Ehime Maru from the ocean floor during October 2001 and moved it to shallow water closer to Oahu.

<snip>

Using the Phoenix III ROV, contractors, beginning on 20 July 2001, first removed Ehime Maru's mast and other items on the ship's decks that could interfere with the lifting operation. Assisted by technical experts from Japan, including one from the company that built Ehime Maru, the Rockwater II contract diving support vessel prepared the ship for lifting beginning the first week of August. After some difficulty, Ehime Maru was lifted off the ocean floor by Rockwater II on 5 October and moved slowly to a location closer to shore. On 14 October the wreck was set down in 115 ft (35 m) of water one statute mile (1.6 km) south of Honolulu International Airport's reef runway.[65]

On 15 October, the first team of USN divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit ONE (MDSU-1) began assessing the sunken vessel. Working in low- to zero-visibility conditions, 66 MDSU-1 and 30 Japanese JMSDF divers from the submarine rescue ship JS Chihaya conducted 526 dives over 29 days, searching the wreck.

<snip>

After the recovery was complete, on 25 November, Ehime Maru was lifted, towed back out to sea suspended about 90 feet (27 m) below the towing barge, and scuttled in 6,000 feet (1,800 m) of water 12 nautical miles (22 km) south of Barbers Point.[67][68] The event was witnessed by three of Ehime Maru's victims' families on board Chihaya. The total cost of the salvage operations was about $60 million.

Wiki

The problem with Estonia has nothing to do with the depth of water or the size of the ship. It is a point blank refusal by the Swedish government to even consider it.

 

[Vixen]

A submarine is smaller and stronger than a ferry.
They only raised a part of the hull by cutting holes and passing lines through it. A submarine has a thick, strong steel pressure hull able to support it's own weight while being lifted.
A ferry would fall apart if the same technique was tried.

The objection has nothing at all to do with size or logistics. Rockwater diving company who were outsourced to assess whether the wreck could be salvaged and the bodies recovered reported back to the Swedish government that it was feasible.

 

[Vixen]

So why did you tell us he dived and cut the pieces?

He is the person credited with it.

 

[Vixen]

Carefully worded. It doesn't say it can only be caused by that. I know another thing that causes those effects. Do you? Are you expert enough to find out?

The key words are: 'compatible with'.


Everything in science has to be looked at in context.

So if the damage from, say a car wreck, is consistent with two vehicles colliding whilst merging on a motorway, of course that damage could have been done a thousand and one other ways, but is still compatible with having been caused by the collision as the car emerged onto the motor way.

What we do is calculate the probability that it was caused by random chance, we use CCTV cameras and ask eye witnesses to come forward with their dashboard cameras.

Thus, we can rule out silly hypotheses that it might have been stepped on by an elephant or that an oak tree fell on it sideways to beyond a reasonable doubt. This never means 100% certainty, but to the best of our knowledge, having done the scientific tests that rule out random chance.

 

[Vixen]

He's still wrong, for the reasons given. You seem to think Amdahl is the only person on Earth qualified to evaluate damage to structures. If he wants to be taken seriously, let him publish his findings for peer review. I've given you several posts, from another expert perspective, showing why his claims -- as presented -- are at best incomplete and at worst just completely wrong. You haven't addressed hardly any of them, probably because you realize you're not even remotely qualified to do so. But you cling to Prof. Amdahl's staged presentation like a drowning person to a life buoy. It's pure faith -- nothing more. Science is not on his side here.

Absolute rubbish. Amdahl was asked for his informal professional opinion, being an expert in his field and he gave it.

Or do you believe that there should be a law as in China or Russia that one must not question anything the government decrees? Perhaps clapped in chains in the gulag archipelago for daring to express your considered opinion on a matter.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The key words are: 'compatible with'.





Everything in science has to be looked at in context.



So if the damage from, say a car wreck, is consistent with two vehicles colliding whilst merging on a motorway, of course that damage could have been done a thousand and one other ways, but is still compatible with having been caused by the collision as the car emerged onto the motor way.



What we do is calculate the probability that it was caused by random chance, we use CCTV cameras and ask eye witnesses to come forward with their dashboard cameras.



Thus, we can rule out silly hypotheses that it might have been stepped on by an elephant or that an oak tree fell on it sideways to beyond a reasonable doubt. This never means 100% certainty, but to the best of our knowledge, having done the scientific tests that rule out random chance.

No. That's not how that works. "Compatible with" means it's a plausible mechanism and they can't rule it out. It doesn't mean you have thought of the only really plausible explanation and all the others are a million to one shot.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

He is the person credited with it.

Perhaps then the question could be rephrase as "why did you tell us he's credited with diving on the ship and cutting the piece of metal?".

 

[Vixen]

And? If the Russians thought it was plausible, affordable, and for some reason necessary to raise or salvage the MS Estonia they could've done so. Instead they were one of 8 nations to sign a treaty to designate the wreck as a gravesite and ban even approaching it. Because SOME company SAID they could salvage the wreck does not mean it was plausible.

I'll ask, if Bildt is the bad guy and he did Russia dirty why would Russia not want to expose him?

ETA: and the Russians did not recover all of the bodies. After it was clear the entire crew was dead their primary motivations were to find the cause of the accident and recover secret material/documents.

Russia has its resources for disinformation, don't you worry! It brought out the 'Felix Report' - the Felix Group supposedly named after some Spetsnaz and consisting of 60 spetsnaz' but suspected of being penned by just the one man - claiming the PM of Estonia was in some kind of bribery and corruption situation with the Captain, blah blah. No specifics no named sources.

Some think Bildt was so desperate for the Baltic nations, such as Estonia, to free themselves of the Russians - who hated losing their domination over that stretch of much fought over territory (Teutonic Knights, Thirty Years War, Northern War, World Wars I and II - you name it) which it had held more or less since the time of Peter the Great after his defeat of the Swedish empire at Poltava - that rather than stir up incendiary hostilities between the ethnic Estonians and ever present remaining Russians, including resentful extreme nationalistic ex-Soviet military - he would play it down as a 'technical fault', as the last thing he wanted was to give Russia the excuse to go in with 'peace keeping troops' and re-occupy.

Bildt won't have seen himself as the bad guy but rather, someone with a noble cause.

Please note: ask yourself why GERMANY declined to sign the Treaty, which has no legal clout anyway as it is in international waters?

 

[Vixen]

And when you slip up with the wording, resort to "It was tongue-in-cheek" or "I was being ironic".

You sound very bitter.

 

[Vixen]

What bugs me is there are two separate issues:

The sinking of Estonia, and Sweden being jerks about it.

The cause of Estonia's sinking is mostly clear with the bow cover getting knocked off allowing the lower decks to floor with water, combined with an inept crew and command.

A new investigation will provide new details which would fill in most of the gaps but I doubt the story changes too much in the big picture.

Sweden smuggling Russian technology on other ferries, their asserting control of the wreck, and the investigation, and refusal of outside assistance plus placing the wreck off-limits is a topic worth exploring. But whatever Sweden's motives were they do not alter the facts of the bow-cover failing.

By combining the two CTists cloud the issues with wild speculation, no matter how dumb (submarine). And then we are continually told "The Germans this and the German's that". Which Germans? Their government? The man on the street? I can't find anything about diplomatic problems between Sweden and Germany, nor official statement from the German government demanding the Swedes acquiesce to any demands in the past 10 years.

I should note that if you want to see a real fist-fight you should wander into a Titanic forum where the arguments get really heated.

The German Group refers to a group set up by marine claims investigator Werner Hummel. He is subject to professional ethics. When our client has liabilty for an accident the insurance company just has to fork up the insurance money. In this case, Meyer Werft were deemed not liable for the accident.

Hummel and the German Group of Experts hold that the vessel was not seaworthy and that the JAIC failed to investigate whether the bow visor had been properly maintained. You can even sea footage that shows a red mattress near the car ramp, as the crew had taken to the practice of trying to stop leaks of seawater by means of stuffing blankets along the ramp edges as the visor didn't align properly. The atlantic lock at the bottom of the visor had and additional bolt-type locking mechanism and the crew were in the practice of having to use a hammer to get it to bolt.

It was the German group, together with investigative journalists who decided to go and film the wreck for themselves and discovered the hole in the starboard side that had never even been mentioned by the JAIC, and in their view might hold the key as to why the vessel sank so quickly, another aspect the JAIC never looked at. When a similiar vessel sank in the Medittarranean after a car deck flooding it took five hours to do so.

 

[Vixen]

Did they ever submit a bid for the job, or even draft a proposal? It's easy to say: "We can do it" if you never actually have to write the proposal.

Yes, the Norwegian company offered to do it at not-for-profit for SEK250,000 (=€30K, £25K, USD40K) and was turned down flat.

Dutch firm, Smit Tak said Dec 1994 it would be salvageable, with the easily accessible human remains first, with the rest brought up with the ship.

The company that salvaged M/V Derbyshire and Lucona, Blue Water Recoveries also said it was possible by use of slings across the vessel via floating derrick barges in a controlled way.

Rockwater, hired by the Swedish government also confirmed it could be salvaged.

The Swedish government never put it out to tender.

 

[Vixen]

By the ship lurching. Not by a blast wave. Don't be absurd.

You have the timeline? Don't keep it to yourself! Tell us the chronology of what happened.

 

[erwinl]

The German Group refers to a group set up by marine claims investigator Werner Hummel. He is subject to professional ethics. When our client has liabilty for an accident the insurance company just has to fork up the insurance money. In this case, Meyer Werft were deemed not liable for the accident.

Hummel and the German Group of Experts hold that the vessel was not seaworthy and that the JAIC failed to investigate whether the bow visor had been properly maintained. You can even sea footage that shows a red mattress near the car ramp, as the crew had taken to the practice of trying to stop leaks of seawater by means of stuffing blankets along the ramp edges as the visor didn't align properly. The atlantic lock at the bottom of the visor had and additional bolt-type locking mechanism and the crew were in the practice of having to use a hammer to get it to bolt.
It was the German group, together with investigative journalists who decided to go and film the wreck for themselves and discovered the hole in the starboard side that had never even been mentioned by the JAIC, and in their view might hold the key as to why the vessel sank so quickly, another aspect the JAIC never looked at. When a similiar vessel sank in the Medittarranean after a car deck flooding it took five hours to do so.

Is the highlighted part not a pointer to the bow visor failing in the storm, as being the cause of the sinking?

 

[Vixen]

Perhaps then the question could be rephrase as "why did you tell us he's credited with diving on the ship and cutting the piece of metal?".

Brian Braidwood said he was on the expedition to dive down and said that two piece of the bulkhead hull around the port side were cut out with a cutter. IMV he has been careful not to mention any names for fear of being prosecuted.

However, Braidwood was a professional Royal Navy diver and militray explosives expert, so it almost certainly was him, or a diver/divers under his instruction.

We call it Scott's Expedition to the Antarctic. It doesn't mean he was a one-man band.

 

[Vixen]

Is the highlighted part not a pointer to the bow visor failing in the storm, as being the cause of the sinking?

It depends what came first, doesn't it? Was it the suggested collision or suggested explosions? Cause and effect can often be clarified by looking at chronology.

The bow visor falling off doesn't necessarily mean it was the main cause.

The JAIC never considered anything else.

 

[erwinl]

It depends what came first, doesn't it? Was it the suggested collision or suggested explosions? Cause and effect can often be clarified by looking at chronology.

The bow visor falling off doesn't necessarily mean it was the main cause.

The JAIC never considered anything else.

Or there were no explosions and there was no collision, but it was all the bow visor failing.

Is that in your opinion in any way a possible scenario?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Three specialist salvage companies were confident they could do it.

Something that has never been done before and without a survey of the ship?

How could they be confident?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Of course not. However, the nature of the bangs on the night of 28 Sept 1994, was that sea man Silver Linde said he was thrown off his feet. Several passenger survivors said they were thrown out of bed.

Well the ship was rolling and taking on a list.

How would explosive charges blowing the bow visor off throw them off their feet?

I have seen ships hit by missiles and bombs and the crew never got thrown off their feet if they weren't in the blast.