The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

It's weird how much of Vixen's narrative reads like superstition. He was a government minister, so of course he must be informed and competent and honest. He was in the navy, so of course he must be informed and competent and honest. He's a documentary film producer, so of course he must be informed and competent and honest. He's a naval architects, so of course... So much of it boils down to this blind faith in titles and credentials. Selective blind faith, of course.

Well, it is better than anonymous sources, isn't it? There are so many different interested parties in this case, of course, one has to explain their role and viewpoint. The opinion of a journalist will be different from that of a government spokesman, and again a ship's engineer will have experienced a different perspective than a passenger. Pointing this out is to help evaluate opinion from fact. The opinion of someone who was actually there helps indicate what information is valuable from that of someone who knows nothing about the case and deciding 'the JAIC must be right because after all they are the establishment'.

The views of experts on marine collisions and explosions are surely worth more than Fred and Freda Bloggs who get all of their views from the news on tv or the internet.


People want to hear the experts, not Fred and Freda.

 

[Vixen]

? Columbo? Do you make this up as you go, or did you read it, or watch a lot of Columbo?

"We" would not know how observant the police person in question is, until we take his/her statement, and get their testimony - "we" as a trained investigator. Did the police person see Bigfoot?

Presumably people who progress through the ranks are the ones with the right skills. We have guys in the Met who are 'super recognisers' - once they have seen a face, they never forget it. Can pick out the face of a wanted villain in a crowd of hundreds. Police are trained to be observant and to write their notes ASAP because these will be the factual objective, emotion and judgement-free, facts as read out in court.

 

[erwinl]

Well, it is better than anonymous sources, isn't it? There are so many different interested parties in this case, of course, one has to explain their role and viewpoint. The opinion of a journalist will be different from that of a government spokesman, and again a ship's engineer will have experienced a different perspective than a passenger. Pointing this out is to help evaluate opinion from fact. The opinion of someone who was actually there helps indicate what information is valuable from that of someone who knows nothing about the case and deciding 'the JAIC must be right because after all they are the establishment'.

The views of experts on marine collisions and explosions are surely worth more than Fred and Freda Bloggs who get all of their views from the news on tv or the internet.


People want to hear the experts, not Fred and Freda.

Trusting experts works strange.

Yes, experts within their expertise do start ahead, compared to lay persons.
But!
If what the expert says contains easily distinguished errors or illogical statements, then the experts statement loses anything it had trustwise.

Everything always up for reviewing if the expert explains its statement better.
But a statement where u submarine could have caused a sharp hole (partly with the edges sticking to the outside) above the waterling, then the extra explanation has to be.....fenomenal to be even considered again.


Experts are good, very good to have present. But in the end the facts do have to stand by themselves irrespective who the expert is.

 

[Vixen]

It does.

The ramp wasn't leaking until AFTER the loud noise caused from the bow-cover being damaged by a large wave.

Actually, there are a surprising number of survivors from the lower deck 1 - the cheapest cabins because of the sheer noise (I was in one of these when it was Viking Sally) - who were first to escape. Why? Because they noticed water ingressing into their cabins and in the corridors outside so they scrammed to the upper deck. This is surprising because there was general pandemonium once the 45° lurch happened, so these people should have been right at the back of the rush to get out, yet were not because there was something wrong before 1:15, the time given by JAIC as to when the car ramp flooded.

In addition, the two seamen only saw 'water coming in through the sides of the ramp' on a monitor elsewhere. Some people believe the water spraying towards the CCTV lens is actually water from a fire sprinkler. A sudden rush of 2,000 tonnes of seawater would make a terrific deafening noise, especially with the clatter of lorries and cars dashed against metal walls, yet no-one mentioned any such noise. A whopping 29 survivors - out of 137 (of which 58 were crew) - reported two or three loud bangs before the lurch, yet no-one mentioned the deafening roar of a stormy sea lifting it up.

 

[Vixen]

What experience do policemen have with sinking ships?

I would expect the bangs to come first before the ship started to take an excessive roll.
It wouldn't start to take a list until after it couldn't recover from a roll.
Until sufficient water was in to stop the roll it would be rolling from port to starboard with an increasing angle as the water washed from side to side on the car deck, remember we already discussed 'free surface effect'.

Why would any noises from the bow visor come from above?

Well, OK, so Paul Barney was at the stern end near the open promenade decks and thus would have been a couple of floors up from the bow visor.

His account to the police at the time:

Paul Barney - in the Café Neptunus

woke up from a bang/shock and thought there had been a collision;
then he heard cracking and scraping noises and something was gliding along the vessel's hull side;
he got up to look what was going on when the vessel suddenly heeled very widely to starboard and the furniture moved to the deep side.

Statement 24.11.1994

The two Swedish police officers:

Ronnie Bergqvist - Policeman ST Section

vessel started to shake and vibrate;
bar personnel took down the bottles from the shelves;
just after 01.00 hours the vessel heeled first to port, then followed a very hard push combined with a bang/crash and then the vessel heeled very severely to starboard.
all loose objects flew over to the deep side

Statement 17.10.1994


Maria Fägersten - Policewoman ST Section

heavy pitching all the time;
at about midnight the vessel ran against something and she and all the others were looking out of the windows but could see nothing;
then the vessel started to shake/vibrate;
at 00.45 hours the casualty sequence-of-events began, glasses above the bar fell out of their holdings;
suddenly everything flew over to one side when the vessel heeled over very rapidly, people were thrown against the wall - she was able to hold on to the bar: "The ship came over me!" - The clock above the bar showed 01.05 hours.

Statement 2.10.1994 [four days after the accident]

Notice how precise and detailed the police statements are.

So you might claim in theory that a 55 tonne loose visor could make an 18,000 tonne (incl load) cruiser rattle and shake but the JAIC never tested this (rather shaky) theory.

 

[Vixen]

Are you a policeman? Have you trained any policemen? Do you have any scientific evidence showing that police are more reliable witnesses than others?

By their profession, police tend to notice things others might not. For example, the medics in my family have a tendency to call body parts by their medical names, they are not being pretentious, it is just the way they have been trained to think. A fashion designer notices what you are wearing, a keep-fit instructor what one is lacking in, a teacher, where the marks are and spotting the errors.

 

[Vixen]

Why would the Swedish navy leave live ordnance on the wreck?

Those devices are on the Rockwater video. They are obviously not bits of broken wood and tarpaulin, as claimed by Lehtola, so if they are devices as identified by a Royal Naval military explosives expert, assuming they are not dummy facsimiles, and they vanish during later clips, what were they?

And if they are devices, who left them there?

 

[Vixen]

I viewed a Youtube video interview of Paul Barney last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl07Y3mDqHo

He is a compelling witness because his story hasn't changed in 28 years. He is clear about what is his opinion and what is fact. That night he first thought they'd hit rocks. In the following years he believed a bomb was possible, but with therapy he let that idea go.

He claims he saw the bow-cover intact as the shipped bobbed in the sea before it sank. The problem is that other survivors claim they climbed down the back of the exposed car ramp to reach the water.

Hypothermia and shock do not make for accurate memories.

Be that as it may, the JAIC never contacted him to ask about his eye witness experience.

 

[Vixen]

WHY HAS NO ONE SALVAGED/RECOVERED THE MS ZENOBIA! I mean its so cheap to do so according to Vixen! Shes in only 42m of water. Theres no international treaty against it. Why does no one raise her for the gigantic profits they would surely make (£200 million worth of cargo per Wiki)?! I think the conspiracy has just widened yet again.

Nothing to do with expense. Finland was utterly broke after WWII having to pay reparations to the USSR (and it paid them off in record time, with ordinary people contributing their jewellery and valuables to do so) yet it brought home every single one of its dead soldiers, including two of my uncles at the kolmellla kannaksella, home to the their home village and proper war memorial section in the churchyard, no expenses spared. The USA is still bringing home its dead from the Korean War. Yet some guy in the Swedish intelligence agency decided that the victims of the Estonia disaster, including a two-month-old baby, were to stay put at the bottom of the Baltic.

 

[Vixen]

Comex were French, they became part of Stolt in 92 but were more or less still a separate company. They specialised in Saturation Diving which they helped to pioneer.

They may have offered their services at cost but they would have had no way of knowing if it was possible before they visited the wreck itself and did a survey.

At least they offered, out of kindness and compassion.

 

[Vixen]

Can you provide a source for that please.

The divers are not named so I suspect it was Braidwood himself, although he was probably quite elderly by then.

 

[Vixen]

There are a number operating in the North Sea but for a long job like a ship recovery a proper charter would be needed.

There was an attempt to recover the bodies of the victims of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster, in 1988, in the North Sea, from a depth of 144m - much, much deeper than the Baltic wreck.

An explosion and resulting oil and gas fires destroyed Piper Alpha on 6 July 1988, killing 167 men,[3] including two crewmen of a rescue vessel;[4] 61 workers escaped and survived. Thirty bodies were never recovered.

wiki

So you see, it can be done. Where there is a will, there is a way.

 

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this claim? Does the scientific literature confirm that police are more reliable witnesses than non-police?

As I recall, there is, simply because police officers are obliged to write notes ASAP after an incident. They are trained to be report verbatim speech without putting a value judgement on it. Thus, it can be quite amusing to hear police evidence in court when they relate completely po-faced, 'The defendant then said **** off you stupid ****' in the same tone as height age and appearance.

 

[Vixen]

Through experience you can tell when something isn't 'right' with your ship.
You can feel when something is wrong.
You might not know exactly what it is but you pick up subtle differences in the sounds, vibrations or motions.

...and know exactly when to don the survival suit.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Actually, there are a surprising number of survivors from the lower deck 1 - the cheapest cabins because of the sheer noise (I was in one of these when it was Viking Sally) - who were first to escape. Why? Because they noticed water ingressing into their cabins and in the corridors outside so they scrammed to the upper deck. This is surprising because there was general pandemonium once the 45° lurch happened, so these people should have been right at the back of the rush to get out, yet were not because there was something wrong before 1:15, the time given by JAIC as to when the car ramp flooded.

In addition, the two seamen only saw 'water coming in through the sides of the ramp' on a monitor elsewhere. Some people believe the water spraying towards the CCTV lens is actually water from a fire sprinkler. A sudden rush of 2,000 tonnes of seawater would make a terrific deafening noise, especially with the clatter of lorries and cars dashed against metal walls, yet no-one mentioned any such noise. A whopping 29 survivors - out of 137 (of which 58 were crew) - reported two or three loud bangs before the lurch, yet no-one mentioned the deafening roar of a stormy sea lifting it up.

What deafening roar of a stormy sea?
Sea makes no noise. We hear noise on the ashore because the waves break against it.
At sea you mainly hear the wind and the sound of the waves hitting the ship. Big waves against a ship make banging sounds.

A bow visor working up and down as iit's fastenings break free would make banging sounds.

Water flooding a ship will find the lowest point. On a passenger ship the passenger decks are not watertight spaces, they are connected by open stairways and passages. Cabins are not watertight. Why is it a surprise those on a lower deck were flooded first?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Well, OK, so Paul Barney was at the stern end near the open promenade decks and thus would have been a couple of floors up from the bow visor.

His account to the police at the time:



The two Swedish police officers:



Notice how precise and detailed the police statements are.

So you might claim in theory that a 55 tonne loose visor could make an 18,000 tonne (incl load) cruiser rattle and shake but the JAIC never tested this (rather shaky) theory.

Water entering the ship would make lots of noise as it pushed cars and lorries around. When the ship began to list the ship would make lots of noise as objects including big lorries moved to the lower side.
Why do you think it would not shake and shudder? I have been on ships in storms with no damage that shook and shuddered.

 

[Andy_Ross]

By their profession, police tend to notice things others might not. For example, the medics in my family have a tendency to call body parts by their medical names, they are not being pretentious, it is just the way they have been trained to think. A fashion designer notices what you are wearing, a keep-fit instructor what one is lacking in, a teacher, where the marks are and spotting the errors.

What training do police and medics have in the sounds and motions or the structure of ships?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Those devices are on the Rockwater video. They are obviously not bits of broken wood and tarpaulin, as claimed by Lehtola, so if they are devices as identified by a Royal Naval military explosives expert, assuming they are not dummy facsimiles, and they vanish during later clips, what were they?

And if they are devices, who left them there?

You are avoiding the question.
I ask again, why would the Swedish Navy leave unexploded ordnance on the wreck?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Nothing to do with expense. Finland was utterly broke after WWII having to pay reparations to the USSR (and it paid them off in record time, with ordinary people contributing their jewellery and valuables to do so) yet it brought home every single one of its dead soldiers, including two of my uncles at the kolmellla kannaksella, home to the their home village and proper war memorial section in the churchyard, no expenses spared. The USA is still bringing home its dead from the Korean War. Yet some guy in the Swedish intelligence agency decided that the victims of the Estonia disaster, including a two-month-old baby, were to stay put at the bottom of the Baltic.

Do you think there is a difference between bringing the remains of a soldier home and salvage of a 15,000 ton ship?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Nothing to do with expense. Finland was utterly broke after WWII having to pay reparations to the USSR (and it paid them off in record time, with ordinary people contributing their jewellery and valuables to do so) yet it brought home every single one of its dead soldiers, including two of my uncles at the kolmellla kannaksella, home to the their home village and proper war memorial section in the churchyard, no expenses spared. The USA is still bringing home its dead from the Korean War. Yet some guy in the Swedish intelligence agency decided that the victims of the Estonia disaster, including a two-month-old baby, were to stay put at the bottom of the Baltic.

Do you think there is a difference between bringing the remains of a soldier home and salvage of a 15,000 ton ship?


What 'guy' in the 'Swedish intelligence'?

Do the intelligence services make the decisions for the Swedish government?